Punjab Kings Rocked Early; Top-Order Fails to Deliver again

image-lgf8ol40Shikhar Dhawan walking off after losing his wicket against GT (AP Photo)

Punjab Kings have started IPL 2023 with a bang, winning their opening two games but their batting faltered in the last game against SRH with Dhawan playing a lone battle. The same trend seem to be continuing against GT in Mohali as Punjab have lost three early wickets while batting first. Prabhsimran Singh departed for another duck and the orange-cap holder, Shikhar Dhawan also failed to make an impact in this game.

Matthew Short though batted with good intent coming in at number 3 and played a sparkling knock of 36 off 24 balls. Rashid Khan, however, knocked him over in his first over after the Powerplay putting Punjab in some trouble. Earlier, Shami got another wicket in the first over of the game and then Josh Little got a big one of Dhawan in the 4th over. At the time of writing, Punjab Kings are 71-3 at the end of 9 overs with Rajapaksa and Jitesh Sharma batting in the middle.

Punjab Kings still have the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Sam Curran still to follow and they would need to get at least around 180 to challenge GT on this very good batting deck at Mohali. They are not short of firepower and if they do get to that total, the bowling attack with the likes of Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada would be in with a chance.