Cooper Connolly Shines on IPL Debut as Punjab Kings Beat Gujarat Titans

Earlier in the game, the Titans could crawl on their way to only 162/6 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first. Their batters got the starts, but none of them found it easy to score freely and struggled to get going for a long time. Shubman Gill top-scored, hitting 39 off 27 balls and was the best of the lot. Jos Buttler, who struggled in the T20 World Cup recently, scored 38, but looked scratchy during his 33-ball stay. Glenn Phillips and B Sai Sudharsan also got the start, while Washington Sundar failed to get going towards the end, as did Rahul Tewatia.

Connolly’s Debut Heroics Guide Punjab Kings to Thrilling Win

Punjab Kings used only five bowlers. Vyshak Vijaykumar was the star of the show, bowling according to the plans and finishing with 3/34. Yuzvendra Chahal used his experience and varied his pace beautifully to finish with 2/28. Marco Jansen, who provided the opening breakthrough, was fantastic to end with 1/20. Xavier Bartlett and Arshdeep Singh didn't get any wickets, with the latter bowling a lot of extras towards the end and was expensive.

Despite losing Priyansh Arya early on in the run chase, PBKS were cruising until the halfway mark, courtesy of a cracking 76-run second-wicket partnership between Prabhsimran Singh and Connolly. The former holed out on 37 off 24 balls off Rashid Khan, who tried his bit in the middle overs to stop the run flow and finished with 1/29.

Prasidh was called late to the attack, but picked up three wickets in quick succession to lead a GT fightback. He struck on the very first ball to get rid of the Punjab skipper. Iyer hit 18 off 11 balls, including a couple of sixes off Ashok Sharma, who tried to bounce out the right-hander. At one stage, the Karnataka pacer had figures of 3/3, and it appeared as if Punjab would bottle this.