KINGS XI PUNJAB defeated ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE by 5 wickets in a low scoring match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai. KXIP chased down the target of 125 runs easily as they became the first team of IPL to win their first five matches in a row and in a single season. George Bailey the skipper of KXIP won the toss and elected to bowl first. Anyway, Chris Gayle has finally played his first match in IPL 7 and gave the match a smashing start with two sixes and two fours in the very first over of the match, but he went away early after that as scored only 20 runs of 7 balls.
After that, wickets kept on falling for RCB as Parthiv Patel scored only 2 runs of 7 balls and yet again Virat Kohli (C) failed to deliver the performance of his class as he scored only 4 runs of 2 balls. Only Yuvraj Singh gave a steady performance among the batsman of RCB. He scored 35 runs of 32 balls. Well, KXIP’s bowlers did a great job to hold back RCB to 124 runs in their limited 20 overs. Sandeep Sharma yet again gave a match winning performance as he took 3 big wickets of RCB by considering 15 runs only. Rishi Dhawan and Mitchell Johnson claimed 2 wickets each.
In reply, Virender Sehwag started the innings for KXIP steadily as he scored 32 runs of 26 deliveries but Glenn Maxwell (6 runs of 6 balls), Wriddhiman Saha (W) (2 of 6 balls) and Cheteshwar Pujara (10 of 18 balls) failed to perform in this match as KXIP lost 3 early wickets in the second innings. Well, David Miller played a decent innings in a compare to this low scoring match, he scored 26 runs of 20 deliveries. However, Victorious skipper of KXIP, George Bailey and Rishi Dhawan finished the innings for KXIP in style as Dhawan smashed a four to get the winning runs. Bailey and Dhawan scored 16 of 16 balls and 23 of 22 balls respectively.
Well the young talent for RCB, Yuzvendra Chahal again gave a brilliant performance as he took 2 wickets with the economy rate of 5.75. Varun Aaron and Ashok Dinda claimed 2 and 1 wickets respectively. RCB may have lost the match but Mitchell Starc gave a value for money performance as he took some extraordinary catches and conceded only 15 runs in his allotted 4 overs, but it was unlucky for him as he has not claimed any wicket.
That’s it, SANDEEP SHARMA the uncapped player got the Man of the Match Award and CHRIS GAYLE got the Yes Bank Maximum Sixes award as he smashed 2 exceptional sixes. Kanna Keep calm Award was given to MITCHELL STARC for taking two marvelous catches near the rope.