During the 38th match of the 11th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) and Rajsthan Royals (RR) at Indore, Kings XI Punjab beat Rajasthan Royals by 6 wickets to register their sixth win of the season.
After Ravichandran Ashwin won the toss and put Rajasthan Royals in to bat, the visitors failed to get off to a start which they would have thought of. No batsman stood by Jos Buttler, who tried hard from one end to steer his team’s innings. Shreyas Gopal’s cameo in the slog over enabled the Royals to post a decent total of 152-9 in 20 overs.
Losing Chris Gayle and Mayank Agarwal inside the powerplay, even Kings XI Punjab did not get to a start in the affirmative. A 50-run partnership between the Karnataka duo of Lokesh Rahul and Karun Nair stabled the innings for Kings XI. After Nair got out, Rahul took the onus on him to steer Kings XI past the victory line. Punjab scored 155-4 in 18.4 overs.
Now, we will look at the hits and flops players in this match.
Hits
Jos Buttler (RR) – Rajasthan Royals persisted with Jos Buttler opening the batting with D’Arcy Short. Buttler did not let them down, scoring his second consecutive half-century of the season, 51 (39), with the help of seven fours. Amongst the specialist batsmen of his team, Buttler was the only one who seemed to be in some form.
Mujeeb Ur Rahman (KXIP) – Adjourned as the ‘Man of the Match’, Mujeeb Ur Rahman was introduced into the attack as the first change bowler in the third over of the innings. He registered match figures of 4-0-27-3, picking up the wickets of Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer. Rahman deceived the opposition batsmen at will.
Lokesh Rahul (KXIP) – Had it not been Lokesh Rahul’s highest ever individual score in the IPL, there were chances of Kings XI Punjab committing an error or two in their chase. Opening the batting with Chris Gayle, Rahul ended up scoring his seventh IPL half-century, 84* (54), with the help of seven fours and three sixes. In which was a classy innings, Rahul proved that he can play this format as both an anchor and a finisher.
Flops
Ajinkya Rahane (RR) – Coming in to bat at No. 3 in the first over itself, Ajinkya Rahane was expected to play the anchor role for his team. Having said that, he looked out of sorts, scoring 5 (7) and getting out to a poor shot.
Mayank Agarwal (KXIP) – Despite his stellar domestic season, Mayank Agarwal has had a below par IPL season. For some reason or the other, he has failed to bring his form from the domestic season to the Indian Premier League. Coming in to bat at No. 3 in the third over, he ended up scoring an uninspiring 2 (3). So far, he has scored 118 runs in nine matches at an average of 14.75 and a strike rate of 135.63, numbers that might end up forcing Punjab’s management to drop him for the next match.
Jofra Archer (RR) – Known for his ability to bowl nail-biting yorker deliveries and not giving the opposition batsmen many chances to score runs, Jofra Archer scored failed to stand tall on both the above traits. With bowling figures of 3.4-0-43-1, he was too expensive for a 153-run chase.
