PBKS vs GT highlights: Punjab beat Gujarat by 3 wickets in Mullanpur

Well, Cooper Conolly hit one that went through the covers and got the boundary away and takes Punjab home. What an innings it has been from the left-hander who came to bat three and batted like he has been in this league forever. He was the man standing between Titans and Punjab. Other batters could have done better for Punjab, but nevertheless, they have got home, and that's what matters. As per Titans, they fought hard with the ball, but they were short in the department of runs to start with. Credit to Prasidh for the way he turned this match around, but it was not enough. That is it from us folks, do join us tomorrow for Lucknow Super Giants vs Delhi Capitals.

Connolly has gone past fifty here. He has been the player who has kept Punjab in this game, and most importantly, the player who has not thrown away his start, and that is the reason Punjab are ahead in this game. In the first innings, when Titans batted whenever they had a set batter he fell trying to accelerate altough it is hard to know how much is a par score batting first but if they have batted a little differenly and made sure Buttler batted till the end this could have been 180 and that would have defeintly been more than enough on this surface the way Titans have bowled.

Well, well, the Gujarat Titans have managed to pick up two wickets since our last update. First, it was Shreyas Iyer who flicked one off Prasidh straight to the deep-square leg fielder, and then, with two left-handers in Gill, turned to Sundar, and it did work as Wadhera tried to hit one through the covers and ended up giving the catch to Gill, who was there. Titans are slowly getting back into the game. Connolly, who was batting pretty fluidly, has gone a bit under the radar. Shashank Singh has walked into the middle. He is a specialised finisher in this team. As we update, Prasidh has picked up Shashank Singh.

Rashid Khan has picked up the wicket of Prabhsimran Singh here. He was batting well as the right-hander, but on that occasion, he could not get the timing right and was holed out at long-off, a big breakthrough that the partnership was running away. What is going against the Titans at the moment is that it is raining, which makes the surface slippery but it does not seem like it is raining hard enough for the players to go off. Also every time the ball goes out on the out-field the ball will get wet which will make it tougher for the Titans bowlers.

Now the Punjab Kings are opening up here, they have set up for the shorter deliveries, and the balls are coming nicely onto the bat, which they are slamming through square-regions. It is about damage control in this passage. As the ball gets softer, it becomes very hard to hit if bowled slower. Kagiso Rabada, who bowled a decent first over, was taken apart in the second over with both Prabhsimran and Conolly going after him. Conolly is taking the attack to the Titans at the moment, they need to find a breakthrough here as it is going away from them pretty quickly as of now.

Mohammed Siraj has taken the new ball for the Gujarat Titans, and he did get a bit of swing to start with. The advantage Siraj has is his natural length tends to align with the length that has worked on this wicket tonight. Although Arya has smashed Siraj for a six, it was still a pretty good over from Siraj. As we update Titans have picked up their first wicket and it is Kagiso Rabada who got the breakthrough. It was a short-pitch delivery which made Arya pull the ball and it seems like he did not get it right and Ashok Sharma took the catch.

The innings finally has come to an end here. It was a smart review call suggested by Prabhsimran Singh, and the ball brushed off the pads of Rashid Khan, so the decision was reversed, and the innings ended. Titans are 20 short here, one of the batters who got a start needed to keep going, but they were Punjab with their persistent bowling into the surface, making it harder and harder for the Titans. It is going to be a tricky chase for Punjab too because Gujarat themselves has pretty good bowling attack and it will be upto Gill to manage his resources well. We will be right back after the break do stay with us.

Vyshak has picked up Shah Rukh Khan, too. They have bowled exceptionally well here. The Punjab kept chipping away in the last few overs. Arshdeep Singh will bowl the final over, but the issue for them is that they have one less delivery outside the circle because of the slow over-rate.

Jos Buttler has fallen here. What a time to pick the set GT batter yet again, and once again it is that man Chahal with his experience threw the ball, which Buttler hit, and long-off Bartlett took a stunning catch on the boundary. On another day, it might have gone into the boundary, but such has been the form of Buttler in recent times. Every time the Titans' batter had a start, they fell apart. What this means is if Punjab top three to four, one of them, if they can score a 70-80 they will cruise in this chase quite comfortabally.

After a few high-scoring games we have seen in this tournament, this might not be as high-scoring one, and it will be very interesting to see how this wicket will respond in the second innings if there is no dew. The slower balls have worked, but it is hard to say at this point how good Punjab has bowled because Titans are scoring at a decent clip and batters are hitting their boundaries wherever presented, but unless Punjab plays it will be hard to say what is a good score on this one. The rate at which Titans are going at the moment they might end up around that 180-mark.

Gujarat Titans have gotten themselves into a rut here. Punjab has found the length to bowl on this surface, and they are doing it brilliantly. It seems that digging the ball into the surface is the way to go on this wicket, mixing with cutters, and that is what they have been doing. And one of the things with the Titans is they are reliant on their top three, and they know the bulk of the runs have to come from them. It is a good partnership, but the scoring which goes on at IPL will they be able to match that when the situation arises where the wicket is a bit flatter, we have to see...As we update, Shubman Gill has fallen here.

That was a terrific dismissal from Marco Jansen, indicative of the form he has been in. The ball before he bowled a bumper to Sudharsan, which he looked a tad bit uncomfortable, and then he followed it up with a fuller one, which Sudharsan hit straight to the mid-off fielder. A fast bowling plan 1-0-1. Interesting bowling changes from Shreyas Iyer. He seems to be making the bowling changes on the run. Bartlett, who specialises in the new ball, got just one over, and Iyer turned to Jansen, and after delivering a good Jansen got another one. Vyshak, who is good through those middle and later overs, has already bowled one here.

Arshdeep Singh has taken the new ball here for Punjab, and there is some swing on offer. Nothing alarming, though, but both batters Gill and Sudharsan had to watch out for those initial deliveries. These two, both Sudharsan and Gill, are not your conventional ballistic openers who will smoke 100 in the first six, but the longer they bat, they can match the more damage they can do to the opposition, like any powerful opening combinations in this tournament. Xavier Bartlett has taken the new ball from the other end, and he too can swing the ball both ways.

(Break after the T20 World Cup) It was good. I spent some time with the family, my sisters, my mom, my dad, obviously my brother as well. He was playing cricket back home. And then yeah, went to the farm for a few days, spent some time in the bush. And then yeah, got back here to India. (On finding success in international and franchise cricket) I think coaching staff has helped me a lot. Dealing with different coaches, having to work with different coaches across the world, picking their brains. And obviously the domestic players here in the IPL last year especially has helped me a lot, Arshdeep in particular and Shreyas Iyer from a captaincy point of view. And then yeah, just for me personally, it's just about always wanna come here and give my best and put the team in a winning position. I think that's (having played cricket in India) helped me a lot in terms of how to play better or be more consistent in Indian conditions. I remember previously when I was younger, I just struggled quite a bit with the bounce and then with the spin as well. And I think spending time here playing in the IPL for numerous years now has helped a lot regarding that.

We're going to bowl first. I firmly believe that chasing gives you a fair idea about how to go about the target. And also, we played a couple of practice games and whatever total was scored, I think it was easily chased down. So, thinking that at the back of my mind, I'm taking that decision. (Message to the team coming into this season) Honestly speaking, we had a phenomenal last season, but it's over now. We start from ball one and the only message I have given them is just be yourselves, go out there and express to the best of your abilities and see to it that you're in the present moment, not thinking way beyond because T20 is such a format where you actually think way ahead of the game. So, the more time you give yourself, the better position you'll be in. (On not having a great record at this venue) I personally feel that we don't have to think much about what the result has been in the past. We just want to play the best brand of cricket we've been playing and the boys when they came in, all of them were in great mind space and it's important that we think about now and not think about what has gone past by. So, my only thinking is that we just got to stay in the present and see to it that we play the best game possible. (Overseas players) Cooper has come in, so he's a new addition to the team. Stoin is there, Bartlett and Jansen.

Prabhsimran Singh(w), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal

Punjab wins toss and opts to bowl first vs Gujarat in Mullanpur

"I don't like this rule as I am an all-rounder myself. Earlier we used to pick all-rounders for this role (batting and bowling). Now the team management goes with a particular batter or bowler, they say why do we need an all-rounder? Being an all-rounder myself I don't like it but at the same time, rules are rules. We have to follow them. But personally, I don't like it," Axar had said on Monday.

"There's a certain skill in the game that you need to have. When you have a certain amount of batters and if a couple of your batters get out, there's an amount of skill that you need to have to still get the scoreboard moving and get your team to a good score. With that one extra player, it's making the game more one-dimensional and it's taking a little bit of the skill out of the game. Chasing 180 on a challenging wicket or 160 on a challenging wicket is for me, it's personally way more exciting than chasing 220 on a flat wicket," he added.

“I think definitely, yes. With 10 days of time, we already have a few conversations around that on how he used to look at those aspects, what you exactly mentioned. Yes, we had conversations, and hopefully, it helps me to get more success,” Sudharsan said.

“Personally, I don't have a lot of personal targets to achieve and things like that. Yes, we all want to be at our best. We all want to score runs every game, but the biggest thought process for me is now we have to do that for our team to the fullest of our abilities. That's the top priority. From there comes yes, we have to make our team win. We have to score a lot of runs, but the biggest priority is this," he added.

"Our level of cricket last year was good enough for us to finish on top of the table, but that doesn't mean anything going into a new season. I talked a lot last year about this team that we put together as being different and (playing) a really daring style and brand of cricket, and we've got to start that all over again. It's nil-nil now for everybody," he said.

"We've worked together a lot now. We must have had maybe four or five years together at Delhi. When I got this role and realised that Shreyas was going into the mega auction, then I made sure I had enough money in my purse to be able to buy him at the auction," Ponting said.

The maximum temperature during the day is expected to be 33 degrees centigrade, and it is expected to drop to 16 degrees later in the evening, according to the Accuweather app. With the drop in temperature, dew might likely be forming in the second innings, hence teams winning the toss might be opting to bowl first.

Shubman Gill (C), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna