RR vs PBKS, Match 8 IPL 2023 Stats Review: Yuzvendra Chahal’s achievement, Shikhar Dhawan’s feat, and other stats

Skipper Shikhar Dhawan smashed 86* off 56 and his opening partner Prabhsimran Singh 60 off 34 while pacer Nathan Ellis took figures of 4/30 (4) as Punjab Kings (PBKS) defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) by a margin of five runs in match no. 8 of the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Guwahati.

With this, PBKS have now won their opening two encounters only for the third time since IPL's inception, doing so before in 2014 and 2017.

Speaking about how the game panned out, captain Sanju Samson won the toss and RR opted to field first. Dhawan and Prabhsimran added 90 runs for the opening wicket. Prabhsimran registered his maiden half-century while Dhawan brought up his 50^th fifty-plus score in the cash-rich league.

Jitesh Sharma struck 27 off 16 as PBKS posted 197/4 on the board. KM Asif conceded 54 runs for no wicket while Jason Holder was the pick of the RR bowlers with his spell of 2/29 (4).

In reply, Yashasvi Jaiswal made 11 and R Ashwin, who opened the innings got out for a duck. Jos Buttler looked threatening again before falling prey to Nathan Ellis. Samson kept his side in the hunt but lost his wicket after managing to score 42 off 25.

Shimron Hetmyer smashed 36 off 18 with Impact Player Dhruv Jurel impressing with his quickfire knock of 32* off 15. In the end, RR got restricted to 192/7 with Ellis delivering the match-winning spell. He also grabbed the Player of the Match award for his four-for which included crucial scalps of Buttler, Samson, Devdutt Padikkal, and Riyan Pirag.

Meanwhile, here are some of the important stats and numbers from match no. 8 between Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League 2023:

50 – Shikhar Dhawan is now joint-second with Virat Kohli for the most 50-plus scores (50) in the IPL. David Warner tops the chart with 60 such scores.

171 – Yuzvendra Chahal has now picked up the second-most wickets (171) in the IPL. He went past Lasith Malinga’s tally of 170 scalps. Dwayne Bravo is at the top with 183 wickets.

1/50 – Chahal delivered his joint-second expensive spell of 1/50 in the IPL. He had leaked 50 runs for no wicket against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2014 and gave away 51 runs for two wickets against Mumbai Indians in 2015.

662 – Dhawan has now scored the most runs (662) against RR in the league. He surpassed AB de Villiers’ tally of 652 runs.

3 – For the third time, PBKS won their opening two matches of an IPL campaign. They previously did it in the years 2014 and 2017.

4/30 – Nathan Ellis registered the second-best figures of 4/30 for PBKS against RR. Arshdeep Singh tops the list with his spell of 5/32 in Mumbai in 2021.

3138 – Sanju Samson has now scored the most runs (3138) for RR in all T20s. He went past Ajinkya Rahane’s tally of 3098 runs.

86* - Dhawan also registered his highest score of 86* against RR in the cash-rich league. Previously, he racked up 78* in Hyderabad in the year 2018.