press trust of india
Ahmedabad, April 21: Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) inflicted the first defeat in this edition of the IPL on Rajasthan Royals here at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Tuesday.
In an exciting contest both teams finished on 191 for six in their allotted 20 overs. In the ensuing Super Over to decide the contest, KXIP scored 16 runs with the help of three boundaries from Shaun Marsh and then Mitchell Johnson bowling dismissed Shane Watson with his first ball. Two balls later Wriddhiman Saha showing tremendous presence of mind ran out James Faulkner. RR could only muster six runs at that stage.
Earlier Royals riding on a brilliant opening stand of 95 runs between Ajinkya Rahane (74, 54b, 6×4, 2×6) and Shane Watson (45, 35b, 5×4, 2×6) scored 191. The innings received a boost at the end as Karun Nair (25, 13b, 2×4, 1×6).
In reply KXIP thrived on knocks from Marsh (65, 40b, 5×4, 3×6) and David Miller (54, 30b, 1×4, 5×6). But then the Super Over wouldn’t have been possible if Axar Patel had failed to hit James Faulkner for a boundary on the last ball of the innings. He did just that and the match then went into what in cricket’s parlance can be called the tie-breaker. KXIP kept their cool and were deserved winners.