By Shrey Siddharth
India’s biggest cricketing spectacle delivered the level of class and performance in its very first week. Every team played their first game in the tournament and showed a glimpse of competition that’s about to come in the upcoming days. Here are the major highlights from this week’s matches:-
Master vs The Apprentice:-
The stakes got higher as Rishabh Pant was making his captaincy debut for DC against the mighty Dhoni’s CSK. CSK scored 188 with Raina coming back with a fifty and a brother vs brother showdown between Sam Curran and Tom Curran, which was won by the former. Prithvi and Dhawan stole the show as Rishabh finished the game with a boundary.
Rana shows promise:-
Nitish Rana showed grit and determination to score 80 runs and build a match-winning partnership with Tripathi to score 187. Although Pandey and Bairstow were attacking the KKR bowlers, it took one spell by Prasidh and Cummins to win it for KKR.
Sanju’s fighting ton:-
PBKS made a mammoth total of 221 with Rahul’s stroke-filled 91 and fifties by Gayle and Hooda and the debutante Sakariya made an impact by taking 3 wickets. When RR was in trouble Sanju stepped up with a magnificent century along with useful contributions from Butler and later by Parag. With RR needing 5 off the last ball, Sanju went for the big shot and got caught in the deep and PBKS won the game by 4 runs. The RR skipper won the man of the match.
Rahul spins it MI’s way:-
Despite good starts by Surya and Rohit, MI could manage 152 as Andre Russell produced an unbelievable 5 wicket haul in just 2 overs at the death. KKR went off to a good start but it was halted by Rahul’s 4-27. KKR needed 31 from the last 5 overs, but Boult and Bumrah bowled brilliantly in the death to take MI to victory.
Maxwell and Shahbaz rise:-
Maxwell played a useful knock of 57, but despite the batting depth, RCB could only score 149 with Holder getting 3-30. This game turned out to be yet another low scoring thriller as Warner’s 54 in the second innings was eclipsed by RCB’s bowlers. Siraj and Harshal took 2 wickets each and Shahbaz’s sensational show of 3 wickets in an over.
The Million dollar man Morris show:-
Unadkat’s 3-15 helped RR restrict DC to 147 with Rishabh’s quickfire 51. When RR seemed in trouble in the last few overs, Miller played a match-winning knock of 62. Morris’s blistering knock of 36 off 18 under pressure took RR across the line.
Deepak owns the game:-
Deepak Chahar was right on target from the word go as he cleaned up Mayank in the first over for a duck, went on to take 3 more frontline wickets in the powerplay and finished his spell with a maiden to restrict PBKS to a paltry 106. CSK finished the game in the 16th over and won the game by 6 wickets. CSK won the game in Dhoni’s 200th IPL match.
MI expose SRH middle order:-
After Rohit and de Kock gave MI a good start, the middle order could not capitalize much. Pollard attacked Bhuvneshwar in the last over with 2 sixes to score 35. Bairstow and Warner went off to a flyer and seemed to end the game under 15 overs until Bairstow was hit wicket for 43. Boult and Rahul Chahar completely rampaged through the SRH batting line-up and MI won the game by 13 runs.
MI and RCB stand on top of the table with 2 wins each. SRH is at the bottom of the table with no wins in 3 games and rests all the teams have one victory each.
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