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Subhabrata Mukherjee: Rajasthan Royals captain young Keralite wicketkeeper batsman Sanju Samson fought a lonely battle with the bat on Wankhede stadium,Mumbai against the renamed franchise from Punjab and only to fall short by 4 runs in the end. Chasing a mammoth total of 222 runs to win Royals started off in the worst possible manner as they lost their talismanic all rounder Ben Stokes for a duck. Soon after Manan Vohra followed the suit as he scored only 12 runs before being dismissed by Arshdeep singh. The duo of Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson then stiched together a 45 runs partnership to take the score past 50 runs. Soon after that Buttler was dismissed for 25 runs. Shivam Dube scored 23 and Riyan Parag 25 to put bit of a support to captain Sanju Samson who in the end ran out of partner and gas as well as he was dismissed of the bowling of Arshdeep. Sanju scored a brilliant 119 runs off just 63 balls. He decorated his innings by hitting 12 fours and 7 sixes. In the pursuit of a win of the last ball Sanju perished only to see his side slump to a narrowest defeat margin of 4 runs.

Earlier in the day Punjab Kings batsmen started off their innings in ruthless fashion. K L Rahul was in free flowing mode as the India international played a fluent knock of 91 runs of just 50 balls. In his innings he hit 7 fours and 5 sixes. He was ably supported by 'universe Boss' Chris Gayle as he scored 28 balls 40 runs and Deepak Hooda who played a blistering innings of 64 runs off just 28 balls 4 fours and 6 sixes. For Rajasthan debutant Chetan Sakariya bagged 3 wickets on his debut by conceding just 31 runs. For Punjab Arshdeep was the star with the ball as he also claimed 3 wickets.