Punjab Kings

In the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, the over rate has proved to be a huge issue with a lot of matches running for almost four hours. "As it was his team's first offence of the season under the IPL's Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences, Mr. Pandya was fined Rs. 12 lakh," said a statement from the tournament.

Opener Shubman Gill notched up his second half-century of IPL 2023 while fast bowler Mohit Sharma marked his comeback in the tournament with a stellar spell to lead the way for Gujarat Titans to beat Punjab Kings by six wickets at the IS Bindra PCA Stadium on Thursday.

After pacer Mohit Sharma made a stellar comeback to the tournament with 2-18 and led a clinical bowling performance from Gujarat in restricting Punjab to 153/8, the defending champions were on course for a comfortable chase, thanks to Gill's serene 67 off 49 balls, laced with seven fours and a six.

After pacer Mohit Sharma made a stellar comeback to the tournament with 2-18 and led a clinical bowling performance from Gujarat in restricting Punjab to 153/8, the defending champions were on course for a comfortable chase, thanks to Gill's serene 67 off 49 balls, laced with seven fours and a six.

After having made only one appearance each in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the IPL, Mohit used his slower balls and tight lines to good effect to finish with 2-18 in four overs, while dismissing Jitesh Sharma and Sam Curran. At the end of the Power-play, Punjab were cruising at 52/2. But Gujarat's bowlers brought them back by conceding only 42 runs in the middle overs and picking four wickets in the last five overs to keep Punjab to a below-par total on a pitch which looked good for batting.

Both teams are into this game after facing defeats in their last match. While Gujarat lost to Kolkata Knight Riders as Rinku Singh hit five sixes on the last five balls, Punjab went down to Sunrisers Hyderabad despite captain Shikhar Dhawan making 99 not out in a batting masterclass.

After Hyderabad got their first victory -- an eight-wicket win, top-order batter Rahul Tripathi, who played a fantastic knock, gifted the broken bails to Umran. In the match, the speedster picked 2/32 in his four overs as Hyderabad restricted Punjab to 143/9, before Tripathi made 74 not out to chase down the total in 17.1 overs.

Tripathi smacked his 74 off 48 deliveries and Markram smashed 37 off 21 deliveries as they raised 100 runs for the third wicket off 51 balls as Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 145/2 in 17.1 overs chasing a modest score of 143/9 in 20 overs built on an unbeaten 99 by PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan. The PBKS innings was destroyed by rookie leg spinner Mayank Markahde who claimed his first four-fer with a 4-15.

Dhawan blasted 12 boundaries and five sixes during his sensational innings and ended up scoring 69.2% of his team's runs. This is the second-highest per cent after Brendon McCullum blazed to 158 out of KKR's total of 222 (71.2%) in the first match in IPL history in 2008.

"We'll bowl first. We are happy to chase. Looks like a good surface. Hopefully, we can bowl well upfront. To the eye, it looks a lot better. The atmosphere has been pretty calm, you can't fix anything in a day technically. Hopefully, we can get our first win. Two new caps are Klaasen and Mayank Markande, excited for them," said SRH skipper Aiden Markram at the toss.