IPL 2019: RR vs KXIP - Three unnoticed events from the match
A high-octane encounter that was surrounded by lots of buzzes due to a controversial decision eventually ended in the Kings XI Punjab's favor. Amidst, all the chaos and havoc, Ravichandran Ashwin's men got better of the Rajasthan Royals and won their first match of the IPL 12 at the Sawai Mansingh stadium.
Rajasthan Royals won the toss and asked the visitors to bat first. Chris Gayle and KL Rahul came out to open the innings for the Kings XI Punjab. The latter had to soon return back to the dugout as he was dismissed by Dhawal Kulkarni on the 4th ball of the match. Rahul's wicket was followed by a 56-run stand between Chris Gayle and Mayank Agarwal which ended after Mayank's dismissal in the 9th over.
After his wicket, Gayle took the charge and started to increase the tempo. The southpaw, along with young Sarfaraz Khan, went all his guns blazing and brutally smashed the Rajasthan bowlers. The Jamaican cricketer's blitz ended after Rahul Tripathi took a blinder near the boundary ropes on the penultimate ball of the 16th over. However, Gayle had already done the damage till then as he had scored 79 runs in just 47 balls.
Once Gayle was dismissed, the mantle had fallen on young Sarfaraz's shoulders and the extremely talented lad didn't disappoint the spectators as he, alongside Nicholas Pooran, finished the game for his team with utter brilliance and helped them to post a challenging target of 185 runs in 20 overs.
Chasing such a steep target is never an easy task. The most important thing in such big chases is the kind of start a team gets and the Rajasthan Royals got exactly the sort of start they needed. A fiery start by the two openers in the form of Ajinkya Rahane and Jos Buttler resulted in the team being 0/64 by the end of the first powerplay.
The skipper Rahane was dismissed in the 9th over but Buttler continued the carnage and kept the required run rate under his control. However, Buttler's damage had to stop after the Englishman was given out on a controversial decision. Buttler's controversial dismissal resulted in collapse and the Pink Army couldn't recover and eventually lost the match by 14 runs.
#1 A match on debut for the Curran brothers
Sam Curran, in today's match, made his IPL debut by playing for the KXIP. Tom Curran, the older brother of Sam had also made his IPL debut in the previous season for the Kolkata Knight Riders.
On one hand, Tom had conceded 39 runs in the 3 overs on his debut, whilst Sam Curran, on the other hand, conceded 52 runs in the 4 overs bowled by him today. Interestingly, both the brothers had an economy of 13 on their IPL debut while both ended their spell with two wickets against their name.
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