Punjab Kings (PBKS) rewrote the history books on 18th May 2025 as they qualified for the Indian Premier League (IPL) playoffs for the first time since IPL 2014. Shreyas Iyer marshalled his troops at Punjab extremely well and qualified for the playoffs.
PBKS outclassed Rajasthan Royals (RR) by 10 runs in a nervy game at the Sawai Mann Singh Stadium in Jaipur, Rajasthan. In the North Indian Derby, it was Punjab Kings, who had the last laugh.
Batting first, Punjab put up a dominant show. They posted 219 runs and lost 5 wickets in the process. Nehal Wadhera top-scored with a quality knock of 70 runs in 37 balls and Shashank Singh followed suit in the back-end of the innings with a power-packed knock of 59* runs.
With the white-cherry, Tushar Deshpande bagged 2 wickets and Riyan Parag took 1 wicket. Punjab Kings had the upper hand in the game as they got a psychological advantage with such a humongous total on the board.
In response, Rajasthan Royals had gotten off to a flier with the opening batters in the form of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scoring 50 and 40 runs respectively. The 14-year-old youngster smashed 40 runs in just 15 balls and his knock was packed with 4 fours and 4 sixes and he batted with a strike-rate of 266.67.
Dhruv Jurel packed a punch with his blistering knock of 53 runs in 31 balls but in the end, the Royals fell short by 10 runs and slumped to their 10th loss in this season. The season has been an abysmal one for the 2008 IPL champions and they would want to end their season with a consolation victory on 20th May 2025 at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai.
Punjab Kings had last qualified to the playoffs in 2014
Under the leadership of former Australian captain George Bailey, Punjab Kings (then known as Kings XI Punjab), had qualified for the IPL 2014 finals. They had lost the finals to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Post that, for 10 years, there were average performances from the team and that forced the owners and team management to undergo a change in their name and identity in 2021.
They would be hoping that Shreyas Iyer flexes his dominant muscles and help Punjab lift their maiden title and break the hoodoo. Notably, Shreyas Iyer had led KKR to their 3rd IPL title, in the previous edition.
