Sikandar Raza. (Photo Source: BCCI/IPL)
Punjab Kings beat Chennai Super Kings by four wickets in a last-ball thriller during Match 41 of IPL 2023 on Sunday, April 30. After choosing to bat first, Chennai Super Kings posted a massive 200/4 on the board courtesy of a brilliant knock of 92* off 52 balls by Devon Conway.
In reply, Punjab managed to chase down the total on the last ball of the innings as Sikandar Raza held his nerve and ran three runs which were needed off the final ball. Raza remained unbeaten on 13* off seven balls and also picked up one for 31 in his three-over spell. Talking to the broadcasters after guiding his team to a sensational victory, Raza said that they won by running like hell and that he targeted the long boundary which helped him run three.
“We won by running like hell. I think that over Livingstone changed the game for us and we could never look back. Jitesh did his bit. I also did my bit and targeted the bigger boundary. Tried to hit 4 and 6 but was not succeeding at all,” said Raza.
At one stage, PBKS required 82 runs off the last five overs before Liam Livingstone (40 off 24) tilted the balance in his team’s favour by smashing 22 out of the 24 runs in the 16th over bowled by Tushar Deshpande. From there on, Sam Curran (29 off 20), Jitesh Sharma (21 off 10) and Sikandar Raza played useful cameos to guide their team to their fifth victory of the season.
‘Maybe it was about retiring one of the guys’ – Sikandar Raza opens up on drama ahead of final ball
Further revealing the drama from the action-packed last over, Raza said that the management wanted to send in a better runner in place of Shahrukh Khan for the final ball. However, Raza assured them that they would run well if they can’t find a boundary.
“I was just looking at a lot of arms being raised in the dressing room. No idea. Maybe it was about retiring one of the guys. I don’t know. We said we were one boundary away from run a ball (in the final over), and if we can’t get that, we’ll run well,” Raza added.
With Punjab needing nine to win off the last six balls, CSK captain MS Dhoni handed the ball to Matheesha Pathirana, who didn’t concede a boundary in the entire over and brought the equation down to 3 needed off the final ball. On the last ball, Raza held his nerve and guided the ball to the wide open space on the deep square leg and managed to run three.
Courtesy of their win, Punjab climbed to the fifth spot in the IPL points table with five wins from nine matches while Chennai maintained their fourth position despite their loss on account of a better net run rate than Punjab.