Kings XI Punjab beat Rajasthan Royals by 16 runs to stay at the top of the table and to make the tournament more interesting at the end. After RR’s loss, it will be an interesting battle between Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals for the 4th position in the points table. Anyway at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali KXIP batted first and projected a score of 179 runs in their limited 20 overs by just losing 4 wickets.
Virender Sehwag and Manan Vohra opened the innings for Punjab but Sehwag gone early by just scoring 18 runs in 8 balls. After Sehwag’s wicket Manan Vohra and Shaun Marsh gave a quick start to Punjab as they both scored 25 runs of 20 balls and 40 runs of 35 balls respectively. Wriddhiman Saha (W) also scored 27 valuable runs in the middle order in just 20 balls.
Punjab really missed Maxwell in today’s match in the near end of the first innings, anyway David Miller and George Bailey (C) made a decent partnership in the end to put up a fighting total on their board. Miller played a 20-balls 29 runs knock and miller supported him well with his 26 runs of innings in just 18 balls.
Rajasthan Royals really scrambled while chasing such a good target and it’s still unknown to all why they changed their winning combination and still experimenting with the combination while they are losing a match after match. RR played the match without Steve Smith in their squad, reason unknown. Anyway, as usual Ajinkya Rahane and Karun Nair opened the innings for RR and they couldn’t do much as they went to pavilion quite early when RR needed a strong opening partnership. Rahane scored 23 runs and he took 26 balls to make those runs. Sanju Samson (W) tried his level best but none supported him as it should be. Shane Watson went for a duck and Stuart Binny had gone by just scoring 7 runs in 10 balls. Still RR’s team management did not send the experienced player Brad Hodge and the man who really providing some quick runs in almost every match, James Faulkner in the middle order. When these two players came to the ground the required rate was over 13. It was an impossible job to do in a turning pitch, but still the duo played well as Hodge 31 runs in just 18 balls and Faulkner scored 35 runs in just 13 balls.
The KXIP spinners did a brilliant job in the match to outrun RR as Akshar Patel claimed 3
wickets by just considering 24 runs. Rishi Dhawan, Karanveer Singh also took 2 wickets each with decent economy rates. Shaun Marsh claimed the Man of the Match award by giving a phenomenal batting performance.