Nine years after their last appearance in an IPL final, Royal Challengers Bengaluru became the first team of the 2025 season to reach the summit clash, after one of the most one-sided playoff games in tournament history.
Table-toppers Punjab Kings marked their return to the playoffs after a decade with a woeful batting performance after Shreyas Iyer won the toss, bowled out for 101 in 14.1 overs with Australian pace Josh Hazlewood marking his comeback to the RCB 11 with 3/21 and spinner Suyash Sharma bamboozling the middle order with 3/17.
In reply, RCB raced to victory by eight wickets with Phil Salt crashing a fifty in 23 deliveries before skipper Rajat Patidar hit a six to seal the deal in 10 overs. The first Qualifier lasted only 24.1 overs, with PBKS’ 101 being the joint second-lowest total in a playoff match.
The result puts RCB in the final on June 3, while a battered Punjab outfit will wait to see who they play in the second Qualifier.
Iyer’s decision at the toss to bat ended becoming a footnote in the match, so poor were PBKS in their approach on a tricky surface. Their top four were all out inside the Powerplay, and each to shots that need not have been attempted. Priyansh Arya chipped an uppish drive off Yash Dayal straight to cover; Prabhsimran Singh charged Bhuvneshwar Kumar and swatted an edge to Jitesh Sharma; Iyer played the worst shot he’s played all season to fall to Hazlewood for the fourth time; and the Aussie pace then bounced out his compatriot Josh Inglis who top-edged a pull to deep fine leg.
At 38/4 in the fifth over, the game had swung RCB’s way decisively.
From here, barring Marcus Stoinis who made 26, no PBKS batsman displayed the intent to hang around. Shashank Singh played an awful shot to Suyash in the spinner’s opening over, and then Musheer Khan – oddly brought in for his first game of the season as Impact Player – departed three balls later with an equally needless swipe. His tail up with 2/2 in one over, all Suyash had to do was land the ball in line with the stumps and the panic set in for PBKS.
Stoinis, having hit two fours and a couple sixes, also inexplicably swiped across the line at Suyash and was bowled. Dayal finished with two wickets and Hazlewood returned to end the innings at 101 when a thick outside edge off the bat of Azmatullah Omarzai was plucked one-handed by a leaping Jitesh behind the stumps.
RCB needed just 10 overs to get to 106/2, handing PBKS the biggest ever defeat in IPL playoff history in terms of deliveries remaining. Virat Kohli fell early to Kyle Jamieson for a run-a-ball 12, but Salt was in no mood to be subdued. He helped RCB end the Powerplay block on 61/1 and hastened victory with 56 not out from 27 balls, while Patidar contributed an unbeaten 15 from eight.
