A wry smile was left on the face of Preity Zinta as Punjab Kings could not cross the line and lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the final of the Indian Premier League 2025. The co-owner of PBKS stood up with a smile and clapped even as her team fell a step short of what would have been their first ever IPL title. Meanwhile, Shashank walked back wiping his tears as he could not pull off a miraculous win for his side.
RCB set up a 191-run target for PBKS in the final but the Kings got stuck in the middle overs, and despite a 22-run last over, ended up six runs short to lose their second IPL final.
The brilliance of uncapped players and their captain Shreyas Iyer had stood out for the Kings through out the season, However, on the day of final, the youngsters got overawed by the occasion and Iyer fell on the second ball he faced.
The three uncapped stars of PBKS, Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh and Nehal Wadhera had all lit up the IPL with runs at a high strike rate all through the tournament. However, come the final, it seemed that the nerves got the better of all three of them. The trio was overly cautious, and in total, the three combined for 65 runs in 59 balls in the final.
The slow batting performance from the uncapped trio and a failure for Iyer meant the other batters were under too much pressure against some top quality bowling from RCB led by Krunal Pandya.
Josh Inglish played another impactful cameo. Shashank fought hard with an unbeaten 31-ball 60 but none of it was enough.
Like RCB, PBKS too had waited for 18 years to get the trophy but while Bengaluru's wait is over, Punjab's will go on. But despite the loss, coach Ricky Ponting would be proud of his work with this team and with the youngsters expected to get better with time, PBKS will hope to go a step better next season.
And hopefully then Zinta will have her beaming smile back but for today we will all have to do with a wry one.
