Punjab defends lowest-ever total after dismissing Kolkata for 95 in IPL

MOHALI, India (AP) — Punjab Kings successfully defended the lowest total in the history of Indian Premier League and bowled out defending champion Kolkata Knight Riders for 95 on Tuesday.

Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal ignited a sensational Kolkata collapse with 4-28 for Punjab’s 16-run win after the home team got dismissed for 111 in 15.3 overs.

Punjab broke into the top four with eight points from six matches while defending champion Kolkata is sixth after four defeats and three wins.

Kolkata had a bumpy start to its chase when Sunil Narine and Quinton de Kock both fell cheaply against fast bowlers Marco Jansen and Xavier Bartlett, playing his first IPL game for Punjab.

But impact player Angkrish Raghuvanshi (37) and captain Ajinkya Rahane showed plenty of intent as Kolkata cruised to 62-2 before Chahal turned the game on its head in the eighth over.

Rahane could have overturned the on-field umpire’s lbw decision against him as the replays suggested the ball had hit the front pad outside the line of offstump but didn’t go for a TV referral and that ignited a sensational Kolkata collapse.

“I’ll take the blame,” Rahane said. “I played the wrong shot … but it started from there. We batted really badly as a batting unit. Too many things going through my head, very disappointed.”

Chahal had been struggling this season with only two wickets in the previous five games. He also had to pass a fitness test ahead of Tuesday’s game.

Kolkata slid further when Chahal went on to dismiss top-scorer Raghuvanshi, who was brilliantly snapped by Bartlett at point and then Glenn Maxwell got the key wicket of Venkatesh Iyer when he had the left-hander lbw while bowling around the wicket.

Kolkata slumped to 76-7 when Chahal first outfoxed Rinku Singh with a slower ball and had the batter stumped and Ramandeep Singh couldn’t resist to play a ramp shot of a low Chahal full toss but got caught at leg-slip.

Jansen (3-17) and Arshdeep Singh (1-11) then mopped up the tail quickly despite Andre Russell (17) showing a brief spark and smashing two sixes and a boundary.

Harshit Rana’s (3-25) triple strike inside the power play had Punjab reeling at 54-4 that included a second-ball duck from captain Shreyas Iyer against his former franchise.

Iyer, who had captained Kolkata to the title last year, but was not retained for this season, was brilliantly snapped by diving Ramandeep Singh at deep point.

Josh Inglis’ IPL debut knock was short lived as the Australian wicketkeeper-batter was clean bowled by Varun Chakravarthy (2-21) when he went for an over ambitious slog sweep against the spinner in the power play.

Glenn Maxwell’s (7) below-par season continued when he got dismissed for his fourth single digit score in six games and Narine (2-25) made it 80-7 when impact player Suryansh Shedge edged the spinner to wicketkeeper de Kock.

Shashank Singh (18) and No. 10 Bartlett (11) made sure Punjab cross the 100-run mark before Bartlett got run-out.

“At the halfway mark there weren’t too many people around the world who would have defended that,” Punjab’s coach Ricky Ponting of Australia said. “That might just be about the best win I’ve ever had as coach.”

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Kolkata Knight Riders' Angkrish Raghuvanshi plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings wicketkeeper Josh Inglis, center, breaks the stumps to dismiss Kolkata Knight Riders' Rinku Singh, right, during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings' Glenn Maxwell, center, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Kolkata Knight Riders' Venkatesh Iyer during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Kolkata Knight Riders' Venkatesh Iyer walks off the field after losing his wicket during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings' Marco Jansen celebrates the dismissal of Kolkata Knight Riders' Andre Russell during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings' captain Shreyas Iyer, right, celebrates with teammates after their win in the Indian Premier League cricket match against Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Kolkata Knight Riders' Harshit Rana is bowled out by Punjab Kings' Marco Jansen during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal, second left, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Kolkata Knight Riders' Ramandeep Singh, second right, during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal celebrates the dismissal of Kolkata Knight Riders' Ramandeep Singh during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Kings Riders at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Cricket Stadium in Mohali, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — In the last 18 months of his life, Pope Francis had a frequent evening ritual: He would call the lone Catholic church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.

That small act of compassion made a big impression on Gaza’s tiny Christian community and was why he was remembered at his death Monday as a beloved father figure in the beleaguered territory.

“I was deeply saddened. He was our biggest supporter after God,” said Suheil Abu Dawoud, a 19-year-old Christian in Gaza.

Francis “always healed our wounds and asked us to be strong,” he said. “He was always praying for us.”

In his last public appearance, Francis called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group. A fervent advocate of interfaith relations, he also urged Hamas to release the dozens of Israeli hostages it is holding and condemned growing global antisemitism.

In his Easter message, Francis expressed his “closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”

While noting the growing antisemitism, he added: "I think of the people of Gaza and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Some 59 hostages remain in captivity, 24 of them believed to be alive.

Israel’s offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people remain homeless.

Things have worsened over the past month since Israel ended a ceasefire and imposed a closure blocking all humanitarian aid into Gaza. Aid officials say thousands of children have beome malnourished and most people have little more than one meal a day.

“I appeal to the warring parties: Call on a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of starving people that aspires to a future of peace!” Francis said in his final address.

That appeal also went unheeded. On Monday, Israel’s airstrikes killed at least 14 people, according to medical officials.

In Israel, the pope left a more complicated legacy. He was widely appreciated for his outreach to the Jewish people and tough stance against antisemitism. He also was an advocate for freeing the hostages, meeting with their families during the war.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog remembered Francis as a man of “deep faith and boundless compassion.”

“I truly hope that his prayers for peace in the Middle East and for the safe return of the hostages will soon be answered,” Herzog wrote on social media.

In the past year and a half of war, Francis became increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the Israeli military’s harsh tactics. A month into the war, he urged an investigation into whether Israel’s war amounted to genocide -– a charge Israel vehemently denies.

In December, Francis expressed his pain thinking of Gaza, “of such cruelty, to the machine-gunning of children, to the bombing of schools and hospitals. ... How much cruelty!”

The next month, he called the ongoing humanitarian crisis “very serious and shameful.”

Francis was mourned throughout the Arab world and by U.N. officials, including Philippe Lazzarini, head of the agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. He posted on X that the pope’s voice “has contributed to draw the attention to significant dehumanization of the war in Gaza & beyond.”

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Francis was a “steadfast advocate for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, particularly in his unwavering stance against the war and acts of genocide perpetrated against our people in Gaza in recent months.”

The Holy Land’s Christian community has dwindled over the decades through emigration and a low birthrate and makes up just a small percentage of the overall population.

Only 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to the U.S. State Department's international religious freedom report for 2024. The report says the majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox but they also include other Christians, including Roman Catholics.

Last year, Francis told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he calls a priest daily at 7 p.m. at the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in Gaza, to hear what is happening to the nearly 600 people sheltering at the facility.

“The other day, they were happy because they managed to eat some meat. The rest of the time they eat flour, things made of flour,” Francis told the program. “Sometimes they go hungry and they tell me things. There is a lot of suffering.”

“It’s very tough. Very tough. The food arrives, people rush to get it,” he said.

The Rev. Gabriele Romanelli, a church official, said Francis' last call came Saturday.

Suhair Anastas, a Palestinian woman who was part of a group that met Francis in 2023 after she fled Gaza, said she felt “great sadness” over his death.

Anastas, who is Greek Orthodox, had sheltered at the church compound in Gaza before she left.

“He did stand by us, by letting us stay at the church and by taking care of everyone in the church,” she said. “I know he wasn’t able to stop the genocide ... but I don’t know who can.”

When she met the pope, Anastas had mixed emotions. The experience was “breathtaking,” she said, but she added she also felt traumatized, sad and guilty “that you’re meeting him and others are still under bombardment.”

She said she will remember the pope “for standing with us” to a certain extent, but “I wish he could have done more.”

George Antoun, an official at the church, told The Associated Press the pope's interest gave the community hope and inspiration.

Francis was like a father worried for his children and would ask whether there was food, medical care and medicine, he said.

“He was with us step by step and day by day,” Antoun said.

“Don’t be afraid. I am with you and praying for you and I will protect you,” Antoun quoted Francis as saying. “He left a big inheritance in Gaza. He is the saint of Gaza.”

Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed to this report.

Pope Francis tours the crowd at the end of the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025. Francis died Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Palestinians carry the bodies of their relatives killed in an Israeli army airstrike, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, April 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk in a makeshift tent camp in Gaza City, Saturday, April 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Mourners grieve over the body of Palestinian child Mohammad Abu Nada, killed in an Israeli army airstrike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday, April 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Pope Francis appears on the central lodge of St. Peter's Basilica to bestow the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Comastri in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

FILE - Pope Francis prays at Israel's separation barrier on his way to a mass in Manger Square next to the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday, May 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, file)

FILE - Pope Francis waves from the popemobile as he rides along the Copacabana beachfront on his way to celebrate mass for World Youth Day, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, July 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File)

Pope Francis tours St. Peter's Square in his popemobile after bestowing the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Comastri in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025.(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli army airstrike on a tent in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Anas El Din Hegazy holds the body of his young brother, Zain, 4, who was killed in an Israeli army airstrike on a tent in Gaza City, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian children receive donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)