Punjab Kings batter Rilee Rossouw said they got to give credit to the bowlers after their comprehensive seven-wicket win against Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Wednesday. The PBKS bowlers did a magnificent job in restricting CSK to 162-7 after Sam Curran won the toss and decided to bowl first.
CSK got off to a decent start as their openers – Ajinkya Rahane and Ruturaj Gaikwad – added 55 runs in the Powerplay overs. However, PBKS got back into the contest after Harpreet Brar and Rahul Chahar kept CSK batters at bay in the middle overs.
CSK could only manage 47-3 from overs 7 to 15 as they failed to find the boundaries. Brar and Chahar conceded 33 runs in the eight overs they bowled collectively and bagged a total of four wickets. Thus, the spin duo conceded their runs at an economy rate of 4.31 and played a key role in restricting the opposition to a below-par score.
Rilee Rossouw said after the win, “Got to give credit to the bowlers, 160 on this wicket was chaseable. The way Jonny played today, hopefully, he takes this form forward and gives us the foundation to chase it down. The spin twins as we call them, there’s another one who is sitting on the bench, he wants to come in. They did the job for us today.”
Meanwhile, Rossouw added 64 runs with Jonny Bairstow, who scored 46, for the second wicket. The South African scored 43 runs off 23 balls but was dismissed on a full toss by Shardul Thakur.
Rossouw added when asked about what he discussed with Bairstow in the middle, “See the ball and hit the ball, nothing really spoken about as to how many we need, just keeping it simple. [on his dismissal] Unfortunate. It was one of those things, so focused on hitting the ball and one of those things, I missed out. It’s never over, till it’s over, we have still got the belief in the changeroom, we will focus on our game and not on the others. Hopefully, things work out.”
Punjab Kings will once again take on Chennai Super Kings at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala on Sunday.
