What is the simplest way to print a field, as in $3 does in awk

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question: ⭐ (strings)

What is the simplest method in perl of achieving the following from awk?

awk '
  $2 ~ /localhost/ {
    print $0
  }
' /etc/hosts
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Originally posted as a Categorized Question.