Rajasthan Royals stun Kings XI Punjab on their way to the highest successful chase of the IPL history as they score 226/6 with three balls to spare in the RR vs KXIP match played at Sharjah today.
A magnificent 5 sixes in the 18th over by Rahul Tewatia, who till then was finding hard to get bat on ball, swung RR’s fortunes and made Tewatia the hero for them.
Replying to a mammoth target of 224 set by KXIP, RR lost Buttler cheaply. Steve Smith was then joined by Sanju Samson who is in great form recently. The duo scored at a brisk pace and they raced to a 100 in the 9th over when Steve Smith got caught by Shami off the bowling of Neesham after scoring a splendid 50 off just 27 deliveries.
Sanju Samson was also going great guns at the other end and reached his 50 off 27 balls. He kept middling the ball and scored freely and RR could hope for victory if he stayed till the end. He lost his wicket on the first ball of the 17th over with the score at 161/3 and RR needing another 63 in 23 balls.
Tewatia, on the other hand, was unable to middle the ball and at one time was on 7 off 16 deliveries. But that Sheldon Cottrell over changed everything and Tewatia brought out the swag from nowhere and smashed him for 5 sixes in that over. Archer joined the party and hit two massive sixes in the 19th over of Shami before Tewatia completed his half century in style by hitting another one out of the park. With 2 required off 7 balls at that moment, he got out trying to hit another one.
Was there a twist in the tale as Riyan Parag was bowled off the 2nd ball of the last over by Murugan Ashwin. That was not going to be the case as Tom Curran smashed the first ball for boundary and completed a historic victory scoring the highest successful chase in IPL history.
Earlier, Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul batted magnificently to take KXIP to a daunting total and it looked at one time that they had batted RR out of the match. Agarwal was particularly dangerous and scored his maiden IPL century in just 45 balls. KL Rahul was in great form as well and scored 69 in 54 deliveries. KLs last century innings had helped the Kings win their last match against RCB.
224 was always going to challenging to chase. But with shorter boundaries at Sharjah, they were in with a chance. And boy, did they take that chance.
