Kings XI Punjab 182 (Sangakkara 94, Harbhajan 3-32) beat Mumbai Indians 116 for 9 (Bravo 23, Chawla 2-16, Lee 1-9)by 66 runs
Football’s truism - money alone can’t buy you a winning team - found its echo in cricket as the Mumbai Indians, the IPL’s most expensive franchise, lost their third consecutive game in a row to find themselves one place above the bottom of the table. They were outplayed by Kings XI Punjab, who secured their first win of the tournament with a fine team performance studded by some moments of individual brilliance.
Rajasthan cruised to an unanticipated win against Kings XI Punjab as they chased down the required target with ease.
Kings XI Punjab 166/8 (20/20 ov)
Rajasthan Royals 168/4 (18.1/20 ov)
Match facts
Monday, April 21, 2008
Start time 20:00 local time (14:30 GMT)
The Big Picture
Kings XI Punjab and the Rajasthan Royals are both looking to open their account in the IPL after coming up second-best in Saturday’s matches. Punjab were undone at home by the brilliance of Michael Hussey but their abundance of riches means they are overwhelming favourites to win in Jaipur. Rajasthan, on the other hand, are enduring a frustrating wait for five of their foreign recruits. To add to their problems their less established players are not showing the mettle required to survive in this cut-throat competition, as was evident during their nine-wicket thrashing by the Delhi Daredevils.
With this being the first IPL match on a weekday, after Friday night’s opener, the size of the crowd will perhaps indicate whether the tournament has truly captured the imagination.
Continue reading ‘Kings XI favourites against Rajasthan Royals’
A pair of Australians, in what was more Pura Cup action than IPL, treated a buzzing Mohali crowd to a run-filled Saturday clash as the bandwagon moved north. Unfortunately for Kings XI Punjab, James Hopes’ 32-ball 71 couldn’t overhaul a massive target of 241, while the Chennai Super Kings had their Western Australia specialist Michael Hussey to thanks for a massive total. His scintillating unbeaten 114, another superb exhibition for this juiced-up format, left Punjab a mountain to climb and with Yuvraj Singh dethroned early they could only muster 207 for 4.
The second match of the tournament features the Chennai Super Kings taking on Kings XI Punjab in Mohali - and it’s being touted as Royal Saturday. From an Indian perspective there’s a buzz around this game given that six of India’s ICC World Twenty20-winning squad, and some of the most expensive acquisitions, will be pitted together. No other match-up includes so many such players and that’s obviously a big draw. Chennai are lead by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who after the Twenty20 victory was snapped up for a whopping US$1.5 million. On the other side is Yuvraj Singh, he of the six consecutive sixes in the World Twenty20, leading a team of this magnitude for the first time. Punjab are a very young and promising team, with only three players over 30, whereas Chennai’s strengths lie in their batting. How each cope with the other’s strengths, and smooth over their own weaknesses - Chennai have solid batsmen but are thin in the bowling stakes, while Punjab lack a potent spinner - will determine the winner of this contest.
The opening ceremony was a spectacular affair, but what followed was even more breathtaking, as Brendon McCullum destroyed the home team in the inaugural match of the IPL. In what was a brutal one-man assault on the Bangalore Royal Challengers, McCullum blasted an unbeaten 158 from a mere 73 deliveries, the highest score in a Twenty20 match, to propel Kolkata Knight Riders to an imposing 222 for 3. The punch-drunk Bangalore team was in no condition to fight back after that battering, and collapsed limply to 82 to lose by an embarrassing margin of 140 runs, the fourth-largest defeat in this sort of match.
It was blitzkrieg today as McCullum smashed the Royal Challengers attack to all corners en route to a record T20 score.
Continue reading ‘Brendon McCullum Records Highest ever T20 Score!’
