Sunrisers Hyderabad spinner Rashid Khan once again got the better of Punjab Kings batsman Chris Gayle as he dismissed the ‘Universe Boss’ for the third time in the IPL in the past three seasons.
On an uncharacteristically sticky surface in Sharjah, Rashid Khan set Gayle smartly: two googlies were followed by a leg-break. On the fourth ball of the 11th over of PBKS’ innings, the Afghanistan leggie bowled a delivery on middle-and-leg which straightened on pitching.
Gayle, however, played for the googly, missing the ball by a fair margin. The on-field umpire deemed it out, but the left-hander felt the need to challenge it. The ball pitched in line, had its impact in line, and was clipping the bails off; the umpire’s call saved the review for PBKS but wasn’t good enough to save Gayle as he walked off after scoring 14 runs off 17 balls.
Punjab stutter in Sharjah losing 5 wickets inside 15 overs
In the battle of the two bottom-placed teams, it is SRH who are on top so far. At the time of writing, PBKS are struggling on 93/5 at the 15-over mark.
After being put in to bat first, KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal found it difficult to get going as the SRH seamers used the change of pace to good effect on a helpful pitch. Rahul (21 off 21) and Agarwal (5 off 6) were out to soft dismissals off Jason Holder inside the powerplay.
Chris Gayle and Aiden Markram steadied the ship for a while but the boundaries dried up before the left-hander fell to Rashid Khan. He was followed soon by another left-handed West Indies, Nicholas Pooran (8 off 4) who was accounted for by a sensational return catch from Sandeep Sharma.
Markram (27 off 32) was caught in deep off the bowling of part-timer Abdul Samad.