Punjab Kings got off to a flying start in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 after beating Nitish Rana’s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 7 runs (DLS Method) on Saturday at the PCA Stadium in Mohali.

After being put in to bat first, the Kings put up a decent score of 191 for five. Bhanuka Rajapaksa was the pick of their batters, having scored 50 runs off 32 balls with five fours and two sixes before Umesh Yadav accounted for his wicket.

After being set a revised target of 154 in 16 overs, the Knights lost wickets at regular intervals in their run-chase, which never allowed them to go past the DLS par score. Rain brought the curtains down on the match with KKR’s score at 146 for seven.

Arshdeep Singh became the Player of the Match after he picked up three wickets of Mandeep Singh, Anukul Roy and Venkatesh Iyer.

Here are some of the key stats from the KKR vs PBKS match

Andre Russell became the third batter to score 2000 or more runs for the Knight Riders in the IPL. Gautam Gambhir (3035) and Robin Uthappa (2439) are the leading run-scorer for KKR. Russell has scored 2012 runs in 79 innings from 92 matches at an average of 31.43 and a strike-rate of 179.16.

Umesh Yadav has made the record of most wickets by a bowler against a single opposition in the history of the IPL. The speedster has picked up 34 wickets from 21 matches against PBKS at an economy rate of 7.48. Sunil Narine and Dwayne Bravo have 33 wickets apiece against the Punjab team and Mumbai Indians (MI) respectively.

Sikandar Raza became only the third Zimbabwean after Tatenda Taibu and Ray Price to play in the IPL. While Taibu made his debut for KKR back in 2008, Price played for MI back in 2011.