IPL 2018, RR vs KXIP: Hits and Misses
It was just the fourth instance of a captain winning the toss and batting first in this season of the IPL as Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to bat. They had an excellent start as they fetched 63 runs in the powerplay as Jos Buttler was once again looking in superb touch.
However, RR couldn’t build on that power play as they could only manage 158 in their 20 overs. Buttler (82) who scored his third fifty on the trot, was the only batsman who scored above 25. Andrew Tye picked up 4 wickets while Mujeeb took a couple of wickets as well.
Chasing 159, KXIP lost wickets at regular intervals and never got going in their chase. KL Rahul was the only batsman that showed some fight and he batted through and scored an unbeaten 95. But with wickets falling around him and the slow pitch didn’t help his cause as he couldn’t quite get KXIP over the line. RR snapped a 3-match losing streak and climbed to the 6th spot in the points table (with 8 points).
#5 Hit: Andrew Tye
Andrew Tye has been superb in this IPL. He has led the KXIP pace attack wonderfully and is the highest wicket-taker for them in this season.
In this game, Tye came into the attack in the 4th over. RR had already scored 35 as Jos Buttler had raced off to 27 off 11 balls. Ajinkya Rahane was giving him good company as he was rotating the strike well. But Tye came in and struck immediately as he got the wicket of Rahane with a clever change of pace (knuckle-ball). He gave just 3 in his first over as he brought some control to the innings.
After a good first over, the 21-year-old Aussie quick went for 11 and 14 in his next two overs. But he came back really well in his final over which was also the 20th over of the innings. He took 3 wickets and conceded just 6 runs as he didn’t allow the RR lower-order to finish with a flourish. Tye finished with figures of 4/34 as he took his wicket tally to 16 this IPL.