On the 27th day of IPL, the tenth edition, there were two matches – while the Mumbai Indians faced off against Royal Challengers Bangalore in a surprisingly close match, the Rising Pune Supergiants took on Gujarat Lions in another fairly close match. We look at the highlights of matches 38 and 39 of the Indian Premier League 2017:
It was at their home ground at the Wankhede Stadium that the Mumbai team took on the visitors from Bangalore. RCB won and toss and opted to bat first. Skipper Virat Kohli (20 off 14), A B de Villiers (43 off 27) and Pawan Negi (35 off 23) were the main contributors to RCB’s 162 run total.
It was a faceoff against the top team versus one of the bottom teams but still a great contest that went down till the penultimate ball (7 were required off the last over). Jos Buttler (33 off 21), Nitish Rana (27 off 28) and Rohit Sharma (56 off 37) were the pick of the RCB batsmen.
Rohit Sharma got Player of the Match award for his match winning knock and for remaining not out to steer his team to a win.
Hosts Pune won the toss and opted to bowl first. Openers Ishan Kishan (31 off 24) and Brendon McCullum (45 off 27) gave the Gujarat Lions a good start. The other batsmen could not capitalise on this however and the visitors were able to post a total of 162 runs only.
RPS started badly with the first three wickets tumbling quickly and Rahul Tripathi getting runout. It seemed a tough ask but, Ben Stokes rose to the occasion with a century. He scored 103 off 63 and remained not out till the end. RPS won with just one ball to spare in the end.
The Perfect Catch of the Match award went to Brendon McCullum. Maximum Sixes award went to Ben Stokes and the Stylish Player of the Match award went to Imran Tahir. Predictably Ben Stokes was declared Player of the Match for his match winning century.
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