This is not the best of the performances from the Indian Premier League (IPL) finalists, Kings XI Punjab, but they still managed to make winning debut in the Champions League with a five-wicket win over the Hobart Hurricanes.
Kings chased down the target with 14 balls to spare as skipper George Bailey (34 not out) and Thisara Perera (35 not out) helped the IPL franchise to get over the line in their tournament opener.
Earlier, electing to field the Kings never allowed the Hurricanes to build any sort of partnerships. Hurricanes’ innings never got momentum as they lost wickets on regular intervals.
Almost every batmen in the Hurricanes’ line up got a start but failed to covert it into a big total, which hurt the Australian team at the end. Travis Birt and Jonathan Wells, however, stitched a 52-run partnership for the fifth wicket to steer Hobart close to a 150-run mark.
Perera also fore with the bat and clinched two wickets, while Parvinder Awana, Akshar Patel and Karanveer Singh chipped in with one wicket each and restricted the Australian team to an under-par 145 in 20 overs.
Chasing a relatively east target, the Kings did not get an ideal start as they lost opener Virender Sehwag (0) on a very first ball of the innings.
Hobart clinched a couple of more wickets to put themselves upfront but the partnership between Bailey and Perera took the game away from them.
After the departure of Manan Vohra (18), Wriddhiman Saha (11) and David Miller (0), Glenn Maxwell counterattacked and put the Kings on course of a win.
Maxwell’s 25-ball 43, featuring two sixes and four fours, took the game away from Hurricanes. There was a moment of scare, when Evan Gulbis dismissed Maxwell but skipper Bailey paced his innings nicely and won the game for his team
