After the bowlers, with the help of Phil Salt’s half-century, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Punjab Kings in the Qualifier-1 match and made it to the final of IPL 2025. RCB won the toss in this match and decided to bowl first and bowled out Punjab team for just 101 runs in 14.1 overs. In response, RCB scored 106 runs for two wickets in 10 overs and won the match.
Punjab has another chance
RCB team is now one step away from winning its first title. Punjab team has a chance to enter the title match despite the defeat. Being on top in the group stage, Punjab will get an additional chance. Punjab will face the winner of the Eliminator to be held on Friday between Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians in Qualifier-2 on Sunday. If Punjab is successful in winning that match, it will reach the final where it will face RCB in Ahmedabad on June 3.
RCB in the final for the fourth time
RCB has thus ended its nine-year drought of reaching the IPL final. RCB last reached the title match in 2016 and since then it has been struggling to enter the title match. Last season, RCB’s journey ended in the eliminator itself, but this time the team has a golden opportunity to win the title. RCB also made it to the finals in 2009, 2011, 2016, but then the team had to face defeat.
Strong performance by Salt
Chasing a low target, RCB lost the wicket of Virat Kohli early, who was dismissed after scoring 12 runs off 12 balls with the help of two fours. After this, Salt and Mayank Yadav took the innings forward and took the team close to victory. However, Mushir Khan sent Mayank to the pavilion by getting him caught by Shreyas Iyer. Mayank was dismissed after scoring 19 runs off 13 balls with the help of two fours and a six. Salt stayed and completed his half-century off 23 balls. This is the least number of balls scored by a fifty in the IPL playoffs for RCB. Salt surpassed Chris Gayle in this matter, who scored a half-century off 25 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016.
Salt did not stop here and stayed at the crease till the team won. Captain Rajat Patidar hit a six off Mushir Khan to take the team to the title match. Salt remained unbeaten after scoring 56 runs off 27 balls with the help of six fours and three sixes, while Patidar scored 15 runs off eight balls with the help of one four and one six.
Disappointing performance of Punjab
Earlier, Punjab’s batting was very poor and the team performed disappointingly. Marcus Stoinis scored the highest 26 runs for them. At the same time, Prabhsimran and Azmatullah Umarzai were out after scoring 18 runs each. Six of their batsmen could not even touch the double digit mark. Punjab’s batting was so bad that the team could not even play the full 20 overs. With this, Punjab made an unwanted record in its name. With this, Punjab’s team has become the team to bat for the least number of overs in the IPL playoffs. It left behind this unwanted record made by Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) in 2008. At that time, Delhi’s team could bat only for 16.1 overs against Rajasthan Royals. This is also the joint third lowest total of the IPL playoffs. Josh Hazlewood and Suyash Sharma took three wickets each for RCB while Yash Dayal got two wickets. Apart from this, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Romario Shepherd got one success each.
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