IPL 2020: Top 5 performances from the second week of the tournament

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Rashid Khan

The T20 cricketing bonanza that is the IPL is up and running as it enters week 3 and it showed us again why it is the best T20 league in the world during the second week of action.

We saw the second Super Over of the IPL take place when the Royal Challengers Bangalore beat the Mumbai Indians on the last ball.

We saw former IPL champions thought to be down and out, score a massive 10 wicket victory to roar back into contention. We also saw the most 2020 thing ever as the Royal Challengers Bangalore finished the week comfortably stationed at the top of the IPL points table. Now, who would have thought that would happen?

While all these results in the IPL set our pulses pumping and racing, it was all down to the players who put in these unbelievable performances to entertain us all week long.

Here are the top-5 performances from week 2 of the 2020 IPL.

5. Washington Sundar: 1/12 in 4 overs vs Mumbai Indians

While the figures produced by Washington Sundar are special in their own right, there are other factors attached to it that make this effort even more special.

3 of the 4 overs bowled by Sundar were inside the powerplay. These 3 overs yielded just 7 runs while also accounting for the ever-important wicket of destructive opener Rohit Sharma. 12 of the 18 balls he bowled during the powerplay were dots.

In an IPL match where 49 boundaries (23 fours and 26 sixes) were hit in total, Sundar did not concede a single boundary in his quota of 4 overs.

His economy rate of 3.00 was best among all the bowlers in the match and Sundar was the only bowler with an economy rate below 7.50.

4. Priyam Garg 51* off 26 balls vs Chennai Super Kings:

A top-heavy and exceptional bowling unit, the Sunrisers Hyderabad have been stuck with one problem for the past few seasons of the IPL, a misfiring middle order.

They decided to mend that by bringing in some inexperienced yet talented young batsmen into their batting lineup. One of those young men is current U-19 cricket team captain Priyam Garg.

Playing in just his 3rd IPL game, Garg entered the game in the 11th over with the score at 69-3, and in his very first act of the game, he got involved in a running mishap which resulted in Kane Williamson losing his wicket.

With Warner and Bairstow already in the stands, the onus was now on Garg to make up for his mistake and lead SRH to a commendable total. He started off cautiously scoring just 15 off his first 10 balls but he upped the ante in the 16th over when he plundered English international Sam Curran for 22 runs including 3 fours and a six over square leg.

He scored 2 more boundaries in the next 2 overs and reached his maiden IPL fifty off just 23 balls. With Garg's batting exceptional batting effort, SRH finished with 164 off their 20 overs.

3. Rashid Khan 3/14 in 4 overs vs Delhi Capitals:

Searching for their first win of IPL 2020 against the then-unbeaten Delhi Capitals, the Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 162/4 off 20 overs on the back of 40+ scores from Warner, Bairstow and Williamson.

SRH started off well holding DC to just 31 runs in the powerplay but against a side boasting the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Rishab Pant and Shimron Hetmyer to name a few, it was wickets and not the economy rate that was going to matter in the end.

In came the spin king from Afghanistan, Rashid Khan, in the 7th over of the innings and he got to work immediately by taking the wicket of Shreyas Iyer with just the 2nd ball of his spell. He followed it up by bowling 6 dots in his next ten balls.

As the pressure mounted, Khan struck again as he hoodwinked Shikhar Dhawan into nicking a googly into Bairstow's mitts. It seemed as if Khan's 3 overs had tightened the screws in DC's coffin but Pant and Hetmyer had other plans as they piled on 51 runs in the next 4 overs while Khan took a breather.

Khan came back in the 17th over and put an end to DC's short-lived outburst as he forced a top-edge off Pant's bat which the deep-square-leg fielder gobbled up with ease.

Khan finished with 3/14 off 4 overs as SRH cruised to their first win in IPL 2020.

2. Shane Watson 83 off 53 balls vs Kings XI Punjab:

Perennial achievers Chennai Super Kings were placed at a really unusual position at the bottom of the IPL standings with just a solitary victory in 4 games. One of the many reasons for their poor form in the IPL this year was the form of opener Shane Watson.

After finishing the last 2 IPL seasons as CSK's 2nd highest run-scorer, Watson found the going tough in the UAE when he failed to score over 15 runs in 3 of CSK's first 4 games in IPL 2020.

It seemed as if he had decided the match against Kings XI Punjab would be the one where he got redemption, he started off with a bang, hitting Sheldon Cottrell for 2 consecutive boundaries in the first over. That set the tone as he brought up his 50 in just 31 balls, Watson spared none of the KXIP bowlers and ended with a score of 83 off 53 balls.

Nearly 75% of his 83 runs were scored through boundaries (11 fours and 3 sixes).

1. Ishan Kishan 99 off 58 balls vs Royal Challengers Bangalore:

Ishan Kishan wasn't a part of Mumbai Indians' lineup for their first 2 games of IPL 2020 but was brought in for this game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

He walked onto the pitch with MI in a precarious situation as RCB had made early inroads during MI's tall chase of 202 runs. Kishan started well with a boundary off the first ball but that was only one of two boundaries he would hit for the next 7 overs as RCB's spinners kept MI under check.

Check the IPL points list 2020 here.

Kishan did take a liking to Navdeep Saini, whom he hit for 2 sixes down the ground in the 10th over before smacking Zampa for a maximum in the 14th to bring up his half-century in 39 balls.

Kishan hit at least one boundary in 4 out of the next 5 overs as MI closed in on the set target of 202. MI needed 19 off the last 6 balls and RCB started well, allowing just 2 singles in the first 2 balls. However, Kishan had other plans as he smacked the next 2 balls for maximums over long-on to bring the equation down to 5 off 2.

It seemed Kishan was going to take MI to an improbable victory, but to everyone's dismay, he holed out to the fielder stationed at the mid-off while trying to finish the game off with maximum. Victory may have eluded MI and Ishan Kishan but his performance was surely the best of the lot in week 2 of the IPL.

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