Kings XI Punjab skipper won the toss and elected to field first. KXIP will look to get their campaign back on track after a couple of defeats when they lock horns with bottom-placed RR in IPL today’s match. While Kings XI Punjab are placed fourth in the Vivo IPL points table with five wins and three losses from eight appearances, inaugural edition winners Rajasthan Royals are at last spot with three victories and five defeats. Rajasthan Royal started off with a flying start thanks to Jos Butler but they lost D’ Archy shot in the first over. After the end of the 16 overs, Rajasthan Royals were 123/7 as Gowtham departs after Butler and Jofra Archer. Ashwin bowled the first over and took the wicket of D Arcy Short. Buttler hit a boundary after that. Rahane came to bat, Ankit Rajpoot came to bowl the second over, Buttler hit four boundaries off it. Mujeeb Ur Rahman came for the third over, Buttler hit a biundary to the long off. 9 runs came off the over. Axar Patel came for the next over. Rahane was caught by Gayle on the 4th ball. Sanju Samson came next, 4 runs came pff the over. Mujeeb came next, batsmen were taking single between the wickets. Axar came next and gave just 3 runs from it. R Ashwin was back on attack, Samson hit a six on the third ball and then a boundary on the fifth ball. Axar came for the 8th over, Samson hit a boundary on the first ball, 5 singles came after that. Andrew Tye came for the 9th over, a boundary came off the last ball. Marcus Stoinis came for the 10th over. Then samson, Stokes, Buttler, Archer and Gowtham lost their wickets frequently and RR gt in deep trouble. Mujeeb spinned his magic and took 3 wickets. Somehow Tripathi, Gopal and Unadkat took the inning to a defendable score of 152/8.
Target was set Kings XI Punjab needed 153 runs to win the match and they started with the batsmen hitting on the third over as Gayle and Rahul swung into action. The fourth over started in the same fashion but Lofra Archer got Gayle’s wicket and in the next over, Stokes removed Mayank Agarwal. Nair and Rahul took the charge and started looking for runs, runs kept coming for Punjab and they needed to go with the same pace in the low-scorer match. The batsmen were set on the wicket and just then Anureet Singh bowled Nair in the 11th over. Lokesh Rahul looked strong and went ahead, Axar Patel joined him, the required run rate was slightly up now and they needed to stick to the wicket. Rahul got lifeline on the 12th over as the keeper dropped Rahul, the batsmen went on with singles and doubles. Axar couldn’t stay for long and this jolt added some energy into Rajasthan camp. Rajasthan needed to stop Rahul and that would have turned around the game for them Punjab was under pressure after losing wickets, The required run rate also shot up to 9 per over. Kings XI Punjab needed another 51 runs with 6 wickets and 30 balls remaining with the required rate of 10.2 rpo.
KL rahul took the team o the win and Completed his half-century and Made 80(63).
This match was fully Rahul Colored.
– Ankit Vaishnav
