Hazlewood, Suyash and Dayal help RCB bundle PBKS out for 101

Punjab Kings (PBKS)' power-packed batting came undone on a pitch with seam and extra bounce as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) ran through them to bowl them out for 101. The only hope PBKS had was that they had defended 111 at the same venue, New Chandigarh, against Kolkata Knight Riders earlier in this IPL. However, they were left needing to break their own record of the lowest successful defense in the tournament.

RCB now have one foot in their first final since 2016 as their fast bowlers picked seven wickets between them. It was so good for the seamers that RCB introduced spin only as late as the ninth over. Under fire from pace, the PBKS batters tried to hit out against the legspin of Suyash Sharma, and ended up losing three wickets to him. PBKS, who had batting till Kyle Jamieson at No. 10, even introduced a batting Impact Player in Musheer Khan, but he only managed a three-ball duck.

Yash Dayal started PBKS' downfall with an innocuous-looking wicket as Priyansh Arya neither kept a full ball down nor hit it up and over to end up getting caught at cover. PBKS were not about to dial down aggression. Prabhsimran Singh kept charging at Bhuvneshwar Kumar, hit two boundaries, and then edged an even shorter delivery.

Having had the time to recover from injury thanks to the break in the IPL, Josh Hazlewood came on to bang the hard lengths. Shreyas Iyer and Josh Inglis fell trying to hit out against him. They stood no chance. Dayal came back for another spell immediately, and was rewarded with the wicket of Nehal Wadhera.

With the first sight of spin, out came big sweeps, and Shashank Singh and Marcus Stoinis failed to watch the ball from the hand. Musheer fell to a regulation sweep against a legbreak that only just straightened.

Fast bowlers came back and still drew appreciable seam. Romario Shepherd did Harpreet Brar in with seam, and Hazlewood got Azmatullah Omarzai for the last wicket.