Royal Challengers Bengaluru finally broke their longstanding drought and clinched their maiden Indian Premier League trophy by defeating Punjab Kings by 6 runs in the final at Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Punjab Kings got off to a steady start with Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya looking in good touch.
But Phil Salt pulled out a blinder to send back Arya while Krunal Pandya bowled a tight spell snapping up Prabhsimran and Josh Inglis. Captain Iyer suffered a rare failure when he was out for 1 as Romario Shepherd accounted for him. Shashank Singh tried with all his might but ultimately fell short of the mark as their wait for their first title continued.
Earlier, bowlers did more than a decent job to restrict to a below par 190 for 9 in the final. For , top-scored with 43 off 35 balls while skipper Rajat Patidar couldn’t build on a good start managing 26 off 16 balls.
For Punjab Kings, was brilliant with figures of 1/37 in 4 overs while Kyle Jamieson had the figures of 3 for 48.
The prize wicket of Kohli was taken by Afghanistan all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai (1/35). However, the best figures were of India’s premier T20 bowler (3/40), who got three wickets in the final over.
In the closing ceremony before the match, “Sabse aage honge Hindustani” and “Dushman ke chhakke chhudaa de, hum India wale” were among the songs performed as national fervour was the central theme.
“Honouring the Indian armed forces”, “Salute to the armed forces” and “Thank you armed forces” were the message displayed across the digital boards used for advertising and sharing match-related information near the boundary as well as on the first tier of the world’s largest stadium here.
Bollywood playback singer Shankar Mahadevan along with his sons Siddharth and Shivam enthralled the near capacity crowd.
The songs from war-themed movie Lakshya titled “Kandhon se milte hai kandhe” and “Lakshya”, “Ae watan mere aabad rahe tu”, “Vande Mataram” (AR Rahman composed) were among the songs performed with “sabse aage honge Hindustani” being the final one.
The ceremony took place before the summit clash of the 18th edition of world’s biggest T20 tournament between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Punjab Kings.
The players trained in the background with RCB being the first team to take the field for their warm-ups followed by their rivals PBKS soon after.
The tournament was suspended for 10 days last month when the country’s armed forces were executing Operation Sindoor — a military operation in response to Pakistan backed terrorists killing 26 Indian citizens in Kashmir’ Pahalgam.
(With agency inputs)
