Debutant Devdutt Padikkal, 20, of Royal Challengers Bangalore scored 56 off 42 balls with some amazing stroke play at the Dubai International Stadium and helped RCB get off to a solid start. RCB had a brand new open pair of debutant Padikkal and Aaron Finch of Australia and they scored 53 runs in the power play overs.
Padikkal was part of the RCB squad last
year but did not get a game. However, turning to the IPL this season, the name
of the left-handed batsman was the most sought’ after. The next star of
Karnataka cricket, Padikkal, played a key role in his victories in both the
white ball tournaments last season.
Taking his first step towards becoming the
next rising star from Karnataka, Padikkal topped the batting chart with 609
runs in 11 matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and helped the team win the
tournament. In November-December, he showed that he could easily convert to
formats in T20 cricket and batted with 580 runs at an incredible strike rate of
175.75 with the help of a century and five half-centuries in the Syed Mushtaq
Ali Trophy batting chart. Are at the top of the chart. Once again, it was a
performance that helped Karnataka win the tournament.
On Monday, Padikkal impressed Abhishek
Sharma with an immediate thriller against the mid-wicket so that it could be
started before tripping a short past penalty to get two boundaries. He then
smoked SRH debutant T. Nitrogen for three fours in an over. Towards a deeper
square, then the extra cover and the last deep mid-wicket. Padikkal was seen’
starting his range from a straight field under Mitchell Marsh. After the power
play, he settled with Finch, playing the role of aggressor.
He had confidence in the middle that Padikkal
even tried to reverse Rashid Khan. He eventually swept Abhishek Sharma to his
50 off 36 balls with a broom, and became the first player in the IPL to reach
his half-century after Sam Billing (CSK) in 2016. With this, he has now scored
50 centuries in his first-class, List A, T20, and the first film in IPL. But, he
could not move forward and after falling deep in the same over, Vijay Shankar
scored 56 off 42 balls.
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