Ahmedabad, June 2 (IANS) Skipper Shreyas Iyer shined bright by slamming an unbeaten 87 off 41 balls as Punjab Kings entered the IPL 2025 final with a five-wicket win over Mumbai in Qualifier 2 at the Narendra Modi Stadium. PBKS will now meet Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the title clash on Tuesday, in what is a re-match of the Qualifier 1 meeting.
MI being knocked out of the competition also means that IPL will have a first-time champion come Tuesday. Iyer stood tall with a knock full of sheer class and immaculate composure, including pacing it to near perfection, and got his team over the line in a chase of 204 with an over to spare.
Apart from hitting five fours and eight sixes, Iyer overcame early fluency struggles to single-handedly make PBKS win by literally leading from the front. Iyer has now captained two different teams – PBKS and Kolkata Knight Riders to consecutive IPL finals. He also captained Delhi Capitals to the IPL 2020 finals, and the Qualifier 2’s result has made him the only skipper to achieve this fascinating feat.
Chasing 204, Prabhsimran Singh welcomed Trent Boult with a flicked four, before the left-arm pacer had the last laugh by having the right-handed batter top-edge a pull to a running short fine leg. Josh Inglis ensured PBKS’ didn’t lose the plot early on by scooping and pulling Boult for two boundaries.
Priyansh Arya stepped up the attacking mantle by flicking Reece Topley for four, before lofting him for six. The highlight of PBKS’ power-play came in the fifth over when Inglis carted Jasprit Bumrah for 20 runs – a flicked four was followed by a heaved six, before another flicked boundary and a top-edged maximum came off his blade.
But MI bounced back from that little onslaught as pacer Ashwani Kumar had Arya slicing to mid-off, with PBKS ending power-play at 64/2. Shortly after, Hardik Pandya struck when his off-cutter took a thin top-edge of Inglis’ pull and was caught by the keeper, with PBKS’ burning a review on their in-form batter.
Though Iyer and Nehal Wadhera hit some boundaries, including three coming off Hardik Pandya in the tenth over and the latter being dropped on 13 by Boult, Ashwani and Bumrah bowling tight 11th and 12th overs meant the asking rate pushed to 12. Sensing the need to get back in the chase, Iyer hit a hat-trick of sixes off Topley – a heave over backward square leg was followed by two lofts going over long-on and down the ground respectively.
It was followed by Wadhera getting two boundaries off Boult, including one coming off the leading edge. He then greeted Ashwani by slamming him down the ground for six, before the pacer struck by having the batter miscue to mid-off. Iyer marched on to bring up his fifty off 27 balls by squeezing Boult through backward point for four.
Though Shashank Singh was run-out cheaply, Iyer continued to open the bat face at the last moment to get two boundaries off yorkers. He then lofted Ashwani high over long-on for six, and followed it up by clobbering him over long-off on a free-hit. Iyer again lofted Ashwani over long-on for six, before launching him for another maximum to fire PBKS into an IPL final after 11 long years.
Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 203/6 in 20 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 44, Tilak Varma 44; Azmatullah Omarzai 2-43, Marcus Stoinis 1-14) lost to Punjab Kings 207/5 in 19 overs (Shreyas Iyer 87 not out, Nehal Wadhera 48; Ashwani Kumar 2-55, Hardik Pandya 1-19) by five wickets
–IANS
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