On Monday, the Punjab Kings lost their first match of the IPL 2024 when Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru chased down a total of 177 runs. Kohli played a brilliant innings of 77 runs, and Dinesh Karthik finished things off with 28 runs from 10 balls as the Punjab Kings’ woes in death overs continued. Former South African cricketer AB De Villiers, after the match, asserted that PBKS captain Shikhar Dhawan made a mistake by not keeping Kagiso Rabada’s overs for death. He said Punjab paid the price for finishing Rabada’s overs off early.
Rabada looked menacing in his first spell. The Proteas pacer got the wickets of RCB captain Faf du Plessis and Cameron Green in his first spell. Rabada could have seen the back of Virat Kohli too, had wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow held on to an edge from the Indian star.
Rabada was reintroduced in the 14th over of the match when PBKS needed a wicket to get back into the match. However, Rabada could not provide another breakthrough, as he finished with a figure of 2/23 in four overs.
De Villiers said in the post-match show that “I wasn’t at the comms at the time, but the moment this happened, I thought yeah, it was a mistake. I didn’t agree with the decision at all. RCB were going well, so you knew this match would go to the end, and KG was needed there.