Man of the Match today: The stand-in captain of Punjab Kings was awarded the Man of the Match despite his team losing the match.
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During the 29th match of the ongoing 14th season of the Indian Premier League between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals in Ahmedabad, Delhi Capitals beat Punjab Kings by 7 wickets to further strengthen their position on the points table.
Chasing a 167-run target, DC got off to a brisk start on the back of a 63-run partnership between Prithvi Shaw (39) and Shikhar Dhawan (69*). Dhawan, who continued his stellar form against Punjab, scored his 44th IPL half-century and third of this season.
In sound nick from the word go, the 35-year old player seldom played a false shot as supreme timing against all Punjabi bowlers saw playing yet another match-winning knock comprising of six fours and two sixes.
Follows it with a match-winning 69* (47) tonight. #PBKSvDC https://t.co/qTqNntwwTe
— Dixit Bhargav (@dixitbhargav09) May 2, 2021
Dhawan, who has now scored 380 runs in eight IPL 2021 innings at an average and strike rate of 54.28 and 134.27 respectively, has also become the highest run-scorer this season.
Man of the Match today PBKS vs DC
After Capitals captain Rishabh Pant won the toss and chose to field, Kings scored 166/6 in their allotted quota of 20 overs. While most of their batsmen struggled for timing, stand-in captain Mayank Agarwal scored a matured 99* (58) with the help of eight fours and four sixes.
Not finding the optimum number of boundaries especially in the first half of his innings, Agarwal reaped fruits of his determination which saw him refraining himself from playing a rash shot at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
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In what will be remembered as a one-man show by Agarwal, he was awarded with the ‘Man of the Match’ award despite his ninth IPL half-century ending in a losing cause.
“KL Rahul is going for a surgery and hopefully he should be back. Would’ve liked two points but I guess we were about 10 short on that wicket. And the kind of powerplay they had we really had to scrap and fight. One batsman has to bat through, that was my plan. It was my day, I took that responsibility,” Agarwal told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.
