Usually, we have a lot of defining moments and highlights over an Indian Premier League (IPL) season. However when it comes to IPL 2020, there have been ebbs and flows daily, with the weirdest and best things happening within just the first few games itself. And Match 6 was no different on the night of 24th September 2020 as Kings XI Punjab hosted Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dubai!
Winning the toss, Virat Kohli chose to field for RCB and it was a questionable decision considering 4 out of 5 games prior to this one were won by the side batting first. Right enough, it was a fantastic start for Kings XI Punjab, with KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal putting up a 57-run opening stand in decent time. Then, Nicholas Pooran joined the fun and he also put up a 57-run partnership with Rahul.
The runs kept coming and Punjab were looking at a 180+ total. However, RCB captain Virat Kohli went on to drop his opposite number Rahul twice, on 83 and 89 respectively. He dropped him on the last ball of the 17th and 18th over, with score at 157/3 and 2 overs still in play. However, KL wasn’t going to let RCB get away with those drop catches easily.
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He went on to create the most spectacular innings end that you could have ever seen, setting alight the stadium in Dubai wit fours and sixes galore, amassing 49 runs in the final 2 overs including a 26-run over against Dale Steyn followed by a 23-run over against Shivam Dube. Rahul himself scored 42 of those 49 runs and in the process, he went on to score his second IPL century and recorded the highest score by an Indian in the IPL till date!
The innings included 14 fours and 7 sixes as Rahul ended on 132(69)*, playing a true captain’s knock under pressure to perform after they lost their first game of IPL 2020 to Delhi Capitals a few days back. His score went past Rishabh Pant’s 128* which he scored in IPL 2018, and at the time of scoring the century, he was only behind AB de Villiers (133*), Brendon McCullum (158*) and Chris Gayle (175*).
It happened to be early days in the IPL 2020 season which also gave KL Rahul the Orange Cap but we wouldn’t be surprised if he continued to wear it through the season as well, considering he had two amazing seasons prior to this one as well – 659 runs in IPL 2018 and 593 runs in IPL 2019! KXIP ended with 206/3 in their 20 overs and we knew that 200+ wasn’t going to be chased all that easily!
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In fact, it turned out to be a walk in the park for KXIP as they got wicket after wicket in quick succession and ended up bowling out RCB for just 109 in 17 overs, registering a 97-run victory. It was an important game for Rahul as he was up against his national side skipper and he ended up pulling through well, putting up his second entry into the list of all IPL centuries!
The bowling effort that night was led by the leg-spinner as Murugan Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi picked up 3 wickets each and made sure it was an early evening for all involved in this Covid-19 hit IPL 2020 season in the United Arab Emirates. For more updates and similar throwback stories from the world of cricket, make sure you stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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