10Cric IPL

RR beat Punjab by 15 runs to stay in contention for final four

Jos Buttler 1After Chris Gayle’s failure in the match at Indore, he failed yet again in Jaipur and Kings XI Punjab who have been pretty much dependent on their openers could not quite make up for it this time around and despite fellow opener KL Rahul’s 95*, Rajasthan Royals won the match by 15 runs. With the win over Punjab, RR stay alive in the race of Play-Offs.

On Tuesday at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, RR won the toss and elected to bat first and on the back of a good innings from opener Jos Buttler (82) scored 158 runs for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs. In response, Chris Gayle (1) was outdone by Gowtham in the power play itself and Punjab could not quite recover from the loss of their star opener and kept on losing wickets at regular interval.

KL Rahul once again batted through the innings remaining unbeaten on 95. However, that did not prove to be enough as he did not get much support from the other end. This was Rajasthan’s fourth win in the tournament while the fourth defeat for Punjab in 10 matches. Jos Buttler’s 82, which eventually turned out to be a match winning knock was enough to bag him a Player of the Match Award.