KXIP vs CSK | Player Ratings - KL Rahul puts on a show as Kings XI Punjab beat Chennai Super Kings by six wickets

05/05/2019

KL Rahul thrashed Chennai Super Kings’ bowlers, especially Harbhajan Singh, with elan and ensured that Kings XI Punjab added a consolation win to their account. Among the bowlers, Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami bowled with panache to ensure a win for the Punjab-based franchise.

Chris Gayle (3/10): Gayle was uncharacteristically slow tonight, and that was understandable because KL Rahul started in a brilliant fashion. Gayle, however, compensated that a fair bit by taking his strike rate to 100. Anyway, the local fans were having hopes of seeing some Gaylestorm for one final time, but that wasn’t to be.

KL Rahul (8.5/10): Rahul was on a destructive mode. Just after asking the umpire for the middle-stump guard before facing the first ball, Rahul didn’t waste any time before unleashing a self that was never seen before. He milked 28 runs off Harbhajan Singh’s one over and completed his half-century when Chris Gayle at the other end was on five.

Mayank Agarwal (6/10): Mayank is throwing away the starts like anything in the earlier matches, and today, he didn’t get one at all. After hitting a four, the Karnataka batsman was then easily found out by Harbhajan, who staged an incredible comeback in the game after being hit for 43 runs in two overs. It was a sad end to Agarwal’s season as most of his innings promised a lot from the outset and ended up being a flash in the pan.

Nicholas Pooran (6/10): Nicholas Pooran batted with a purpose of nothing to lose and that allowed him to express himself with a score of 22-ball 37. Pooran, once again, showed that he can rotate the strike as well as capable of hitting big shots when needed. As much his innings was soothing to see, his cheeky dismissal didn’t earn him a lot of fans for sure.

Mandeep Singh (6/10): After Pooran’s dismissal, Mandeep had the responsibility of helping the team to win and he did that without causing any further damage to the team. Short yet effective innings.

Sam Curran (7.5/10): The Northampton all-rounder was an absolute delight to watch today and a far cry from the unimpressive bowling performance he put up against Kolkata Knight Riders with the ball. His seam presentation was just perfect and if anyone doesn’t, then Faf and Watson at least would vouch for it. Despite giving away 35 runs, the Englishman was able to pick three wickets and that is worth a round of applause.

Harpreet Brar (5/10): The all-rounder tried to do everything he could to have an impact in the game, but the lack of variations cost him 24 runs in three overs. However, the Punjab bowler was very agile on the field, diving around to save a lot of runs for the team.

Ravichandran Ashwin (5.5/10): When Ravichandran Ashwin proclaimed that he was the best spinner in this edition of the IPL, a section of Twitter didn’t wait for a second to troll him and even went as far as calling him “Narcissist”. Well, if that section of the public was watching the game today, it would be a tight slap because R Ashwin lets his bowling do the talking too. With a mixture of top-arm and newly-developed side-arm action, Ashwin remained economical and the sustained pressure forced the batsmen to take risks against others, which resulted in a flurry of wickets in CSK’s death-overs batting.

Andrew Tye (1/10): The Western Australian bowler is not the fastest going around, but his variations often do the trick and have made him one of the finest T20 bowlers going around. However, in this season’s IPL, he has been ineffective and his stump-to-stump line without any real change in pace resulted in Faf du Plessis and Suresh Raina smashing him to smithereens.

Murugan Ashwin (3/10): The leg-spinner targeted Faf du Plessis while R Ashwin was controlling proceedings against Suresh Raina, but the singular-minded approach resulted in the Tamil Nadu leggie giving away 33 runs in three overs. In a day and age where being a leggie is the order of the day, Murugan needs to move from the world of googly and conventional leg-spin to be successful.

Mohammed Shami (6.5/10): Alongside Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami was the saviour for Kings XI Punjab towards the backend of CSK’s innings. After Curran sent Faf back to the hut, Shami got the better of Ambati Rayudu and Kedar Jadhav in his third over to culminate a spell of incredible substance. His economy rate of 5.67 deserves more than just a trifling mention.