Hurricane Hooda of Punjab Kings

image: BCCI

When the Punjab Kings lost Universal Boss Chris Gayle's wicket in the Parag's 10th over, a hurricane struck the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Deepak Hooda, this 25-year-old right-hand batsmen really rained sixes and four in the stadium against the Rajasthan Royals in the 4th match of 14 the edition of the Indian Premier League and scored 64 runs. This IPL fifty make's the third in his IPL career. 

In the 28 balls, he faced in the match, he sent 10 balls to the boundaries. In which six of them were 6's and four of them were 4's. In the 4th match, he has the highest strike rate of 228.57 and has recorded the fastest fifty in this edition of IPL.

Last year in Dubai, Hooda scored a whopping 62 runs in 30 balls against the Chennai Super Kings when the team needed the most.

Watch his wonderful innings down below.

IPL 2021 RR vs PBKS Match report

image: BCCI

After winning the toss, Rajasthan Royals new captain Sanju Samson choose to bowl first like in the previous games of the IPL.

From the start, Punjab Kings showed their dominance by scoring 10 runs per over. I the third over bowled by the Sakariya, Mayank Agarwal 14 (9) got out.

Then Chris Gayle entered the pitch, he and KL Rahul built a partnership with fours and sixes. In the 10th over from Parag, Chris Gayle 40 (28) got out by giving a catch to Ben Stokes. Parag has tried bowling an underarm to him earlier, which is actually funny to watch.

Then entered the Punjab Kings hero of the match, Deepak Hooda. I think Rajasthan Royals have made a mistake by taking the wicket of Chris Gayle at a certain point in time during the match. 

Hooda is so destructive than the universal boss, Chris Gayle, especially during the middle overs as his strike rate is amazingly more than him. He started to hit the boundaries as the boundary line is in the 30-yard circle.

In the 18th over Deepak Hooda 64 (28), surrendered his wicket to Chris Moriss, by that time the damage is already done to Rajasthan Royals as the score crossed 200.

We need to talk about the good catch of Nicholas Pooran 0 (1) taken by the Sakariya at the end of the 18th over. Nicholas Pooran stayed longer at the boundary line waiting for the third umpire to review than in the crease.

Then the Punjab Kings captain KL Rahul 91 (50) got out in the Sakariya's over. By the end of the Innings, the Punjab Kings scored 221 runs in 20 overs.

Chetan Sakariya is the only bowler from the Royal's camp to have the economy rate under 8 with three wickets. The new buy Mustafzur Rahman seems to be costly with no wickets for him in the four overs he bowled.

To stop the leaking runs, the captain tried eight different bowling options in this game. Every bowlers seems to be expensive in the match.

Second Innings

With a huge target to chase, Rajasthan Royals, started with Ben Stokes and Manan Vohra as their openers. In the third ball of the first over, Mohammed Shami took the first wicket of the Ben Stokes 0 (3). This wicket is a huge loss for the Rajasthan Royals.

Then in the 4th over, Arshdeep singh, a bowler from Punjab Kings took the wicket of Manan Vohra 12 (8). Now the Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju and Jos buttler in the crease. They both have built a good partnership of 45 runs in 26 balls. 

In the 8th over of Jhye Richardson, Jos Buttler 25 (13) got out after a perfect yorker hit the wickets. Then Shivam Dubey got out after a 53 run partnership in the 13th over, when the ball hit his gloves and caught by the wicketkeeper behind.

Then Parag 25 (11) has also built a partnership of 52 runs in the 23 balls and got out to Mohammed Shami's bouncer in the 17th over.

Then last year's sensation lower order batsman for the Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Tewatia 2(4) small cameo didn't made much effect to the scoreboard.

In the final over, Rajasthan has to score 13 runs which is possible for the man in the crease Snaju Samson. But finished with 5 runs short by trying to hit a SIX which is caught by Deppak Hooda in the out field.

My heart is broken and felt sad for the Sanju Samson 119 (63). Eventhough he made a debut century as a captain for his team, that effort goes in vain. 

I thought they should have run for a two in the penultimate and the last ball, which would have leveled the score and would have gone for a super over. 

Here are the Match Highlights.

IPL 2021 RR vs PBKS Match 4

image: BCCI

Today in the Indian Premier League, Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings are going to fight for the two points in their first match of the season in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

In the second match between Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals, the team won the toss chose to field and restrict the opponent to a lower score.

You can expect that same strategy today also on this ground. Just like in the last game the pitch may favour seamers and can easily score runs between 180-190 in the innings.

Rajasthan Royals

In the previous edition of the IPL in Dubai, Rajasthan Royals found it hard to win the matches even with good lower-middle order and a good bowling line up.

The team just managed to win 6 out of 14 matches on the league stage and finished last in the points table. There are a few matches that are lost just because of a lack of planning and implementation.

Rahul Tewatia, an unknown player before last year IPL match started to hit sixes and saved a few matches when the top and middle-order batsman failed.

The team management changed the entire stakes in the team by releasing their captain Steven Smith and others from the team and brought few new players.

 The most interesting buys are Chris Morris for 16.25 crores and Shivam Dubey for 4.4 crores. These all-rounders have to bring a good batting lineup for the team.

Here is the squad of Rajasthan Royals

Probable Playing 11

Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson (C), Mahipal Lormor, Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Sreyas Gopal, Karthik Tyagi, Andrew Tye 

Punjab Kings

With a brand new team and brand new players, the franchise looks promising on the paper. The team brought new players for a huge price as they had a deep purse at the start of the auction.

The costliest buy for the team is a bowler, Jhye Richardson for 14 crores followed by another bowler Riley Meredith for 8 crores followed by an all-rounder Moises Henriques for 4.2 crores.

With these new buy's the team had a decent bowling lineup in the paper and with the addition of Shahrukh Khan for 5.25 crores the batting lineup might also improve.

Even though they fought hard for the victories the old team finished third last just top of Chennai Super Kings last year in Dubai.

Here is the Punjab Kings squad.

Probable playing 11 

KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Shahrukh Khan, Chris Jordan, Jhye Richardson, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Mohammed Shami.

The new celebration of Nitish Rana indicates friendship

image: BCCI

After scoring his 12th IPL 50, Nitish Rana gestured something different to celebrate his half-century and unseen before in the Indian Premier League history.

Later on, in the match, he played wonderful innings and scored 80 runs in 56 balls before giving a catch to Vijay Shankar in Mohammed Nabi's 18th over.

If a player scored a half-century, each player has a different style of celebration according to the moment. Jadeja does his sword with the bat and I have seen Tendulkar lifts his bat and helmet while looking up to the sky. 

In an interview with Harbajan Singh After the completion of the match, Nitish Rana said, that he made the gesture to show the bond between their friends, and he has also sung the song for their friendship.

You can watch the video here.

IPL 2021 SRH vs KKR Match 3 Report

 

image: BCCI

After winning the toss, Sunrisers Hyderabad Captain David Warner choose to bowl first just like in the first match between MI and RCB.

The match started with a four from Nitish Rana in Buvaneshwar Kumar's over and ended with an LBW appeal, David Warner didn't take it upstairs.

From then, Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill punished the bad balls to the boundaries and defended the good balls from the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers.

They both made a good partnership of 52 runs in 42 balls until Rashid Khan got Shubman Gill's 15 (13) wicket at the end of the 7th over. 

After that Rahul Tripathi and Nitish Rana made another marvellous partnership of 93 runs in 50 balls. When the Natrajan Bowled a slower ball to Tripathi 53 (29), the ball edged and raised high towards and caught by the wicketkeeper.

Immediately after that, Andre Russell 5(5), Nitish Rana 80(56) and Eoin Morgan2(3) got out to the Afghan spinners. 

Rashid Khan and Mohammed Nabi stopped the runs massacre for SRH with their brilliant bowling efforts. If they didn't pick those wickets in time, the score would have crossed 200 runs. 

Then in the death overs, Dinesh Karthik 22(9) and Shakib Al Hassan 3(5) played few shots which sent the ball to the boundaries and they both scored a total of 27(16).

With their effort, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 187 runs in the 20 overs at a loss of  6 wickets.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

With a Target of 188 runs to chase in 20 overs, David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha opened the Innings. Harbajan Singh bowled the first over after the 2019 CSK finals.

In the second over, David Warner 3(4) gave a catch to wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthi in the Prasidh Krishna's over. Then the SRH lost W Saha's 7(6) wicket at the beginning of the third over to Shakib Al Hassan.

Manish Pandey and Jhonny Bairstow made an excellent partnership and scored a whopping 92 runs in 67 balls. At the end of the 13th over, Pat Cummins claimed the J Bairstow wicket 55(40). 

From then, the SRH run-rate started to decline, Manish Pandey tried to revive it but no use. The Sunrisers batsmen started to surrender their wickets to the KKR bowlers. At last, there are no balls remaining to score the runs.

Kolkata's wonderful bowling and experience helped them to win this first match. Sunrisers Hyderabad's bad middle-order and the inexperienced batting lineup costed the match. Manish Pandey's and Jhonny Bairstows fabulous fifty's goes in vain.

Nitish Rana has awarded with man of the match for his excellent innings of 80 runs in 56 balls.

IPL 2021 SRH vs KKR Match 3

image: Hotstar

The third match of the Indian Premier League 2021 is between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Kolkata Knight Rider on the 11th of April.

Sunrisers is captained by David Warner and the Kolkata Knight Riders are led by the Worldcup-winning team captain Eion Morgan.

Both the teams won the title at least once in these fourteen years, but last year the teams fought a very thought fight to enter the knock-out stage.

Only Sunrisers Hyderabad was able to enter the knockout stage but, in the 2nd qualifiers match Delhi Capitals won the match by 17 runs, which led the team to drop out of the series.

Coming to Kolkata Knight Riders, they were in the 5th position in the points table last year. The team announced a change in captaincy in the midseason due to the frequent loss of the matches on the league stage. 

Dinesh Karthik stepped out of the captaincy, and England cricket team captain, Eion Morgan took his place, after that the team started to win the matches.

The match is going to be played in Chennai. The broadcast starts at 6 PM today on Star Sports Channels.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

SRH just added three players in the auction this year. The big buy is Kedhar Jadhav for 2 crores, followed by the Bangladesh Bowler Mujeeb Ur Rehman for 1.5 crores and Jagadeesha Suchit for 30 Lakhs.

The main problem for the Sunrisers are the middle order, if the top order performed well the team will win obviously. But, if the top order fails, there is no one in the middle order to win the matches.

Here comes the Kedhar Jadhav, he performs well in the middle order than in the top-middle or lower-middle order.  

Coming to the bowling department, they have the best bowlers in the team with good spin options and fast bowling. Adding Mujeeb Ur Rehman to the squad is a plus point for the team.

Here is the Sun Riser Hyderabad Squad.

Probable Playing 11* : 

 David Warner (c), Jhonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jhadav, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Vijay Shankar, Rashid Khan, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, T Natrajan.

Team News:

Kolkata Knight Riders

After last year loss, KKR brought in some big guns to the team Shakib Al Hassan was one among them for 3.5 crores, next inline was Harbajan Singh for 2 crores to strength up the spin bowling, followed by Ben Cutting, Karun Nair, Pawan Negi, Venkatesh Iyer, Sheldon Jackson and Vibhav Arora.

Hope this team would deliver the trophy this year.

Coming to last year performance, KKR just lost their touch in winning the matches. They scored big runs but unable to defend or unable to chase the small totals.

The team has flaws in both the batting and bowling department. With the new recruits, the team has huge chances to overcome their flaws very soon. Otherwise, the history repeats this year too.

Here is the KKR Squad

Probable Playing 11* :

Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Shakib Al Hassan, Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakraborty.     

Team News

Pitch

In the first match between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the team won the toss to choose the fielding first to restrict the opponent to a small score.

In this match too, the team which won the toss may choose to bowl first and restrict the opponent to a lower score and chase the score.

Here is the video of the pitch report in the first match.

Suresh Raina's come back in IPL 2021

image: BCCI

 

After a year gap, we all saw Suresh Raina bat for the Chennai Super Kings in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. He Scored an amazing 54 runs in 36 balls, after losing quick wickets.

With the help of Moeen Ali and Amabati Rayudu, Suresh Raina built a fabulous partnership when the team need the most. 

Here is his knock against Delhi Capitals in match 2