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Promising opener Yashasvi Jaiswal made a dream comeback with a career-best 68 as Rajasthan Royals (RR) well and truly remained in hunt for a play-off berth beating Punjab Kings (PBKS) by six wickets, which also happened to be their first while chasing in this edition of IPL.
Drafted in place of Karun Nair, the 20-year-old showed superb game awareness and picked the gaps at ease in a 41-ball 68 (9x4, 2x6) to brilliantly set it up for the RR in their tall 190-run chase at the Wankhede which was completed with two balls to spare.
Jaiswal, who was adjudged the 'Player of the Match' for his sensational innings, credited his match-winning knock to Zubin Bharucha, RR's head of cricket. The young gun lauded Bharucha for guiding and motivating him to get better.
"To be honest, I didn't know I'll be the Man of the Match. It's an amazing feeling whenever I go and bat, with all my pride I go and bat. (Favourite shot) I think the one I hit Rahul Chahar over the covers. I just tried to keep it simple - good cricketing shots. I want to dedicate this innings to Zubin sir (Zubin Bharucha). He has helped me a lot during all the times, whenever I was sitting with him, when I was down. He has been pushing me always. It's been a pleasure to perform like this. He has motivated me a lot, pushing me everyday like 'you can do it, you'll do it, just keep working hard.' I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, I'll try my best," Jaiswal said in the post-match presentation.
With its first successful run-chase, Royals team are now on 14 points from 11 matches in third place and one more win will firmly put them in contention for a a to-four finish.
The win also meant that the five-time champions Mumbai Indians became the first team to be eliminated from the IPL-15 season.
The loss meant a big blow to Punjab playoff hopes as they now have 10 points from 11 matches.
