Where on the one hand the team with the most fancied stars in it continues to hurtle towards certain elimination, on the other we were witness to a tie and IPL2017's first Super Over. Double Header Saturday featured Rising Pune Supergiants versus Royal Challengers Bangalore at Pune and the Gujarat Lions versus Mumbai Indians at Rajkot. Here is what went down in matches 34 and 35 at the Indian Premier League 2017:
Rising Pune Supergiants playing at their home stadium were put in to bat by Bangalore who won the toss. Opener Ajinkya Rahane departed without making too many runs but Rahul Tripathi (37 off 28) and skipper Steve Smith (45 off 32) steadied the innings. Manoj Tiwary (44 off 34) and M S Dhoni (21 off 17) remained not-out to get their team to a respectable 157 for 3.
RCB already has the dubious distinction of having been dismissed for the lowest ever score of the IPL. They suffered yet another humiliating defeat yesterday. Opener Travis eaHHeHead departed early (2 off 5) as did most others in the team. Except Virat Kohli valiantly holding the fort with his 55 off 48, the rest of the scorecard read like a litany of failures with none of the other batsmen even getting into double figures. The visitors managed only 96 for 9 in their 20 overs. Pune won by a whopping 61 runs.
Catch of the Match award was snagged by Steve Smith. The Maximum Sixes award went to Rahul Tripathi for hitting the longest six of the match. The Stylish Player of the Match was Manoj Tiwary and The Player of the Match was Lokie Ferguson for his two wickets and stingy bowling (just 7 runs given off his 4 overs, the wickets of A B deVilliers and Stuart Binny and contribution to the run out of Kedar Jadhav).
Playing at their home ground in Rajkot, GL won the toss and decided to bat first. Opener Ishan Kishan did well to hold down the fort with his 48 off 35 while wicket tumbled at the other end (B McCullum, skipper Raina, Aaron Finch and Dinesh Karthik departed quickly). Ravindra Jadeja (28 off 21), James Faulkner (21 off 27) and Andrew Tye (25 off 12) managed to get their team up to 153.
Parthiv Patel made the biggest contribution with his 70 off 44. Nitish Rana (19 off 16), Keiron Pollard (15 off 11) and Krunal Pandya (29 off 20) were the only others who made significant contributions to the total. Ultimately the teams were tied and the decision came from the one over eliminator in the end. James Faulker bowled the Super Over for his team and set Gujarat Lions 11 runs to win the game.
Though he started with a few hiccups, he managed to restrict the Gujarat team to steer his team to victory with some superb bowling under pressure.
The award for the Catch of the Match went to Ishan Kishan. The Maximum Sixes award was presented to Andrew Tye for his two sixes. The recipient of the Stylish Player of the Day award went to Parthiv Patel. Player of the Match was Krunal Pandya for taking 3 wickets and his contribution with the bat as well.
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