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Rajasthan Royals 152 for 7 (Jaiswal 39, Hetmyer 27*, Rabada 2-18) beat Punjab Kings 147 for 8 (Ashutosh 31, Jitesh 29, Maharaj 2-23) by three wickets
The final word, though, went to Hetmyer, who, despite an excellent penultimate over from Sam Curran and a good effort from Arshdeep Singh, won with a six off the penultimate ball. There had been two sixes from Hetmyer in the lead-up to that.
The last over
Curran dismissed Rovman Powell and Keshav Maharaj in the 19th over while conceding ten runs, and Royals needed another ten off the 20th over. Hetmyer was on strike, so it always seemed likely, but then Arshdeep delivered two glorious yorkers first up, which the batter could not make anything of, and the equation came down to ten from four.
The key shot in the final over was Hetmyer’s desperate wallop down the ground off the third ball. Arshdeep had not missed his length by much, but this was not quite in the blockhole. Hetmyer swung hard and managed to bully this ball into the boundary cushion – not over it – behind the bowler.
Only centimetres were in it. Had Arshdeep pitched a fraction fuller, Hetmyer would not have been able to get under it. Had Hetmyer not hit it with slightly fewer newtons of force behind it, the shot would have only brought four, and six would have been required from the last three.
Hetmyer muscled the next ball towards long-on and got two, but the worst ball of Arshdeep’s over was the fifth one, and almost anyone could have hit that for a boundary. This came juicy, knee-high, and on the stumps. Hetmyer shuffled across and thwacked it over deep fine leg, clinching a thriller.
Rabada’s charge
In defence of a modest target, Rabada was intense. He bowled two tight powerplay overs, off which just 12 runs came, and then bowled aggressively through the middle overs, as Kings were looking for wickets. He got Jaiswal with a short wide one the batter toe-edged, then claimed the prized wicket of Royals captain Samson when he jagged one back to hit the batter on the back leg. Rabada conceded only two boundaries, which was also the number of wickets he took.
Kings’ underwhelming innings
From that point, Ashutosh, Rabada and, to some extent, Curran did well to make such a tight game out of this.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf
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