IPL 2021: Punjab Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by 4 runs

Sanju Samson played a valiant knock of 119 on his captaincy debut but still couldn't stop Punjab Kings from registering a thumping 4-run win over Rajasthan Royals in Match 4 of the Indian Premier League 2021 in Mumbai on Monday.

A high-scoring game saw Rajasthan fall short of a mammoth target of 222 at the Wankhede Stadium as they were restricted to 217 for 7 by Punjab, who rode on superb bowling performances from Arshdeep Singh and Jhye Richardson to stop their opponents.

Rajasthan got off to the worst-possible start when Ben Stokes was dismissed off the third ball in the first over by Mohammed Shami with the team even opening their account. Second opener Manan Vohra, playing his first match for RR, also got out cheaply for 12 before Samson, Jos Buttler and Shivam Dube brought them back in the game.

Buttler and Dube played cameos of 25 and 23 respectively while Samson kept them in the hunt



by scoring his 14th IPL fifty and first as the skipper. The equation got really close as Rajasthan needed 48 from the final 4 overs, a period of play where PBKS were worst in IPL 2020.

Samson brought up his 3rd IPL hundred off 54 and kept getting the big shots with success even as he kept losing partners at the other end. With 13 needed from the final over, Rahul handed the ball over to Arshdeep, who managed 0, 1, 1, 6, 0 and Samson's wicket off the final ball to win the match for Punjab.

Samson's score was the highest-ever by a Rajasthan batsman and the highest by a batsman on captaincy debut in IPL history. He is also the second Indian after Virat Kohli to score more than 2 hundreds in the competition.

The Punjab bowlers took some beating in the first-half of the chase but pulled things back in the death overs. Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh bagged a couple of wickets each for the Kings.