Thrilling win for Punjab Kings

Punjab Kings notched up their second win on the trot as they beat Rajasthan Royals by five runs in an IPL match here on Wednesday. Batting first, skipper Shikhar Dhawan smashed an unbeaten 86 off 56 balls while young Prabhsimran Singh carted the Rajasthan Royals bowling attack to score 60 off 34 balls as Punjab Kings managed a commendable 197 for 4 in 20 overs. For Royals, Jason Holder was most successful bowler with figures of 2/29 in four overs. In reply, Royals lost wickets at regular intervals to manage 192 for 7 after stipulated overs. For Punjab, Nathan Ellis took 4/30 in 4 overs. Shikhar Dhawan | Winning captain: There were some nervous moments, I was trying to keep my calm and discussing plans with my bowlers. Was happy with the score we put up. We scoring 197 and my bowlers giving those early wickets and then Nathan came in and bowled supebly. It was a full team effort. These 2 games we got a great start, Prabh did really well and I tried my best to increase my strike-rate. We want to keep the momentum going as we got a good batting line-up. We respect the opponents’ bowlers but want to keep the intent and aggression going. Sanju Samson | Losing captain – To be honest, it was a very good track to bat on, not much movement with the new ball and they batted really well, had the momentum in the powerplay. Our bowlers used the variations on a high-scoring wicket and I thought we did well to restrict them to 197. Jos wasn’t fully fit (injured his finger while taking the catch), the thinking behind keeping Padikkal (in the middle order) was to tackle their two spinners in the middle overs. The coaches have put a lot of work behind him (on Dhruv Jurel), we had a work week camp before the IPL, but the way they have worked a lot of time in our academies (during off-season), having faced 1000s of balls and I’m happy with the way they’re progressing. I was expecting the dew to come in the second innings, but it was evident that it was there right at the start, need to be prepared better for such things in the