KL Rahul led from the front by scoring a fluent 67 as Punjab Kings kept their hopes alive by defeating the Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets in Dubai on Friday.
After being sent into bat by Punjab Skipper, Kolkata Knight Riders suffered an early jolt by losing Shubman Gill in the third over to Arshdeep Singh.
Venkatesh Iyer along with Rahul Tripathi added 72 runs for the second wicket before the latter mistimed a slog sweep off Ravi Bishnoi to Deepak Hooda at long on for 34.
Iyer continued his good form by scoring his second IPL fifty, before the left hander was caught at deep midwicket by Hooda off Bishnoi.
Skipper Eoin Morgan’s poor form with the bat continued as he was trapped leg before wicket by Mohammed Shami.
Nitish Rana scored a breezy 31 off 18 balls before falling to Arshdeep slower ball to Mayank Agarwal at deep midwicket.
Debutant Tim Seifert was run out by a brilliant direct hit from Shami, and Dinesh Karthik was bowled by Arshdeep for 11, as Knight Riders ended up with 165/7 in their allotted 20 overs.
Arshdeep Singh was the pick of the bowlers for Punjab with figures of 3/32, while Ravi Bishnoi ended up with 2 wickets.
Chasing 166, PBKS openers KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal got their team off to a good start. The duo 70 runs for the opening wicket.
Agarwal who was dropped early on in his innings, finally perished to a brilliant catch at covers by Morgan off Varun Chakravarthy for 40.
Nicholas Pooran (12) sliced at a Chakravarthy delivery to Shivam Mavi at deep backward point.
The pair of Rahul and Aiden Markram added 45 runs for the third wicket before the latter was caught at deep extra cover by Gill off Narine.
In the penultimate over Tripathi claimed a brilliant diving catch of Rahul at deep midwicket but the decision was overturned as the ball was deemed to have hit the ground by third umpire Anil Dandekar.
However the PBKS skipper departed in the last over, caught at long off by Shivam Mavi off Iyer for a fine 67.
Shahrukh Khan scored an entertaining 9 ball-22 to eventually take PBKS to a 5 wicket win.
Lokesh Rahul was declared the Man of the Match.