The thrilling match between Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad witnessed a last-over drama at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur, Chandigarh. SRH had a task to defend 29 runs in the final over and skipper Pat Cummins chose Jaydev Unadkat to get the job done and the left-arm paceman managed to do it as the 2016 champions won the match by just 2 runs.

Unadkat conceded 26 runs in the final over but it was not him who committed all the wrongdoings but the fielders who dropped three catches.

PBKS batter Ashutosh Sharma smashed the short ball over mid-wicket where Nitish Reddy failed to hold onto the ball and ended up palming it over the rope for a six. The same incident happened on the third ball when Ashutosh lofted the ball over long-off where Abdul Samad committed the same mistake as Reddy. The Punjab Kings’ finisher looked for another big shot on the fifth ball with 10 runs required off the last two. He played it over deep mid-wicket and got dropped once again this time by Rahul Tripathi. However, he managed to collect just 1. Shashank Singh smashed a maximum on the last ball but Punjab ended up 2-run short off the target.

Shashank (46 not out off 25 balls) and Ashutosh (33 not out off 15 balls) fought hard till the end but the top-order failure led to Punjab’s defeat at their new home base.

Skipper Shikhar Dhawan also hailed the efforts of Shashank and Ashutosh and blamed poor batting in the powerplay for the team’s defeat.

“I feel that Shashank and Ashutosh played a great knock, we restricted them to a good total, but we couldn’t cash in on the first 6 overs, lost 3 wickets and that’s where we fell behind and it cost us in the end,” Dhawan told broadcasters.

Talking further about the unbeaten duo, Dhawan lauded them to take the game close which will boost the team’s confidence for upcoming matches.

“There was always hope that they could finish the game, but we got so close and that’ll give us confidence going into the future games, but we’ll have to do better going ahead,” he added.