Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 24 runs over Punjab Kings in the 27th match of the IPL 2023 at the  Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on April 20.  Punjab Kings won the toss and opted to bowl. Batting first, Royal Challengers Bangalore posted 174, courtesy of Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis’ stunning show. Notably, their middle order failed miserably and couldn’t contribute much.

While chasing, the Punjab Kings opener Prabhsimran Singh scored 46 and Jitesh Sharma hit 41. But others couldn’t do well and they could manage 150 runs before getting all out in 18.2 overs, eventually losing the game as well.

Here is what the captains and the player of the match said after the game:

Mohammed Siraj, Player of the Match said as quoted by Cricbuzz: First ball the length was a bit short and then I sensed need to bowl full to get some swing and that was the plan (for first wicket). The lockdown was really important for me, because I used to get hit for boundaries very often before that. I worked on my plans, my fitness and my bowling and it’s all paying dividends now. I always try to improve in every department of the game because I understand it is important to contribute in whichever way possible. Always rated myself as a decent fielder, misfields can happen but I take my fielding seriously.

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Virat Kohli, winning captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: The table can’t define your team. It’s towards game 13 or 14 we can try and focus on what we need to do. Faf batted really well on that pitch. His innings ensured we had that 20-30 extra at the end. The pitch was very rough underneath, there was not enough water there I guess. There was hardly any sixes hit off the back foot against the spinners. The strategy was to bat deep to have a crack at 190. Told them (the bowlers) that the target was more than enough. Cannot afford to take the game deep, especially when they lost 6-7 wickets. The batting line ups are deeper, but we also have options in our bowling. At the halfway stage, tha talk was to take the game to the opposition and you kind of break the game open when you pick up 4 wickets in the powerplay.

Wanindu Hasaranga said as quoted by Cricbuzz: I tried to bowl my strength (wicket-to-wicket). I saw the wicket was gripping, so I tried to bowl wicket taking options (googly). That (Sam Curran runout) was unbelievable, I know Sam wasn’t thinking of the runout but I did it. Good franchise (RCB), I am enjoying it (the stint).

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Sam Curran, PBKS captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: I thought we bowled well as a group. Credit to Faf and Virat for the way they played, but I think we didn’t let them get away, but we were not good enough with the bat. They bowled well, we lost far too many wickets, a couple of run-outs as well. The rain was a factor as well. The wicket was good today, we’ll probably look back at a couple of dismissals and regret, but we’ll come back on Saturday. We are playing in Mumbai on Saturday, it’s a good wicket out there and we’re excited to play over there