KXIP beat Rajasthan by 14 runs with all-round performance
Yesterday Sawai Mansingh Stadium witnessed a dramatic match between Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) and Rajasthan Royals (RR).
KXIP Playing XI – C Gayle, L Rahul (wk), M Agarwal, S Khan, N Pooran, M Singh, S Curran, R Ashwin*, M Shami, M Ur Rahman, A Rajpoot.
Given the chance to set the target first KXIP made no mistake. The ‘Universe Boss‘ Chris Gayle shone the stadium with his bat. With eight boundaries and 4 sixes, Gayle smacked 79 off 47 balls. Also, with his scintillating performance, Gayle became the fastest batsman to score 4000 runs in IPL.
After Gayle’s wicket, the team may have got disheartened but Mayank Agarwal and Sarfaraz Khan made sure to add on runs to set a good total. Sarfaraz’s unbeaten knock of 46 off 29 balls helped KXIP to set a score of 184 to defend.
RR Playing XI – A Rahane*, J Buttler (wk), S Smith, B Stokes, S Samson, K Gowtham, S Gopal, R Tripathi, J Archer, J Unadkat, D Kulkarni.
RR openers, Ajinkya Rahane and Jos Buttler gave a vigorous start to the team by building a partnership of 78 runs. Ravichandran Ashwin came to the rescue for KXIP and broke the partnership by dismissing Rahane for 27 runs. Buttler still continued to hit until Ashwin run out him at 69 runs. Buttler’s 69 runs consisted of 10 boundaries and 2 sixes. The run out created a huge tussle later on though even in replays it was clearly seen that the batsman was out.
After Buttler’s dismissal, Sanju Samson and Steve Smith carried on with the run chase smoothly. Sam Curran broke the duo by sending Smith back to the dugout in 17th over. After that, the run chase seemed impossible as wickets for RR started falling one by one.
RR though played till the last ball but fell 14 runs short of the target with one wicket in hand and lost the match. Chris Gayle was announced Man of the Match for his power knock.
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