‘Bizarre’: Whitney fumes as NSW left red-faced by Shield champs<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI was looking forward to the experience of playing with some world-class players, but to put that performance in tonight, very happy,” Connolly said.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m just more of a tempo player, feel the flow of my hands, don\u2019t hit too many big sixes.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Cooper](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b3b5e00c6abb5b7507d7c83aa8499985056413ab.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Cooper Connolly in action for the Punjab Kings.\u00a0Twitter<\/p>\n
Connolly’s efforts did not go unnoticed by his teammates or the cricket world.<\/p>\n
“Cooper Connolly played an outstanding innings,” Iyer said post-match.<\/p>\n
“Some of the shots he played was surreal. The way he played against Rashid Khan was just amazing. He has great mindset to play in such situations.”<\/p>\n
Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting added: “There was a moment when I got a little nervous because the match had come so close and it felt like it was slipping out of our hands. But Cooper Connolly played an outstanding innings today, batted beautifully, and played brilliantly to help the team win.<\/p>\n
“So, I’m really happy now and feeling much more relieved.”<\/p>\n
“What a debut,” former Australian women’s captain Lisa Sthalekar wrote on X.<\/p>\n
“Staying composed and calm throughout. Shows such great maturity, hence why he is a player that is talked about a lot in Australia.”<\/p>\n
Punjab had the chase under control at 2-110 in 12 overs before impact substitute Prasidh Krishna rattled the middle order with three wickets in 10 balls and the home team slumped to 6-118 in the 15th over.<\/p>\n
But Connolly didn\u2019t lose patience with wickets falling around him provided Punjab a winning start to the tournament.<\/p>\n
Krishna ignited the collapse when Iyer clipped a straightforward catch to mid-wicket of the first ball he faced after he was struck hard on his hand at the non-striker by a hard drive from Connolly and needed on-field treatment.<\/p>\n
Shashank Singh was undone by a sharp short ball and got a faint edge behind the wicket while Marcus Stoinis sliced a catch to Rashid Khan at third of another short delivery.<\/p>\n
Marco Jansen smashed a six but got deceived by a slower delivery from Gujarat debutant Ashok Sharma and offered a tame catch at covers with Punjab still needing 19 runs for victory.<\/p>\n
![\"Punjab](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/94070cfbc63f2fc645f70e31e77a8ca710715836.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Punjab Kings’ Cooper Connolly and Xavier Bartlett celebrate the win against Gujarat Titans.\u00a0AP<\/p>\n
Aussie fast bowler Xavier Bartlett (11 not out) eased the nerves when he pulled Krishna for a six over mid-wicket before Connolly guided Punjab to victory.<\/p>\n
Earlier, skipper Shubman Gill top-scored with 39 off 27 balls, but none of the top-order Gujarat batters could convert starts into meaningful knocks. Gill started off well with his fluent boundaries in the power play, but Gujarat got tied down after scoring 1-54 in the first six overs.<\/p>\n
Gill dominated Chahal early on with his trademark sweep shots before he got caught at mid-wicket while trying another sweep against the spinner as Gujarat couldn\u2019t find momentum after power play.<\/p>\n
Jos Buttler scored 38 off 33 balls, that included 14 dot balls before he holed out to long-on at the start of death overs.<\/p>\n
Punjab did well in the last five overs and allowed Gujarat score only 34 runs with Jansen (1-20) intelligently varying his pace. Arshdeep Singh\u2019s (0-42) long 11-ball last over went for 12 runs that included a no-ball and four wide balls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s Cooper Connolly marked his Indian Premier League debut with an unbeaten half-century in Punjab Kings’ three-wicket win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-577132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}