Indian Premier League week 16th The season started with a last-ball finish and ended with a thrilling last-over victory for table-toppers Rajasthan Royals against defending champions Gujarat Titans.
Here’s a review of the biggest moments from last week.
LSG beat RCB on the last ball
A day after Rinku Singh hit five consecutive sixes to seal a thumping win for Kolkata Knight Riders, it was the turn of Royal Challengers Bangalore and Lucknow Super Giants to throw up a thriller. Chasing a target of 213, Lucknow reached a nervy final over when Avesh Khan and Ravi Bishnoi were dismissed off the final ball of the match. It was a frenetic end to it after Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell struck contrasting half-centuries as RCB totaled 212/2 in 20 overs, which was completed off just 14 balls by the fastest half-century of IPL 23. Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis’ match-shifting 65 off 30 balls when Lucknow were bundled out for 23 for 3.
With five runs needed in the match bowled by Harshal Patel in the last over of the match, Lucknow lost Mark Wood and Jaydev Unadkat and the final ball brought the equation down to one run with one wicket to spare. Harshal tried to run out Bishnoi at the non-striker’s end, but Bishnoi missed his throw and the last-wicket duo had no option but to give a bye after Avesh swung and missed. It could have been a result for RCB if Dinesh Karthik had not made his move behind the stumps.
Mumbai registered its first win by defeating Nortje
A day later, the clash of the two winless teams produced another last-ball nail-biter, if one lacked the quality of cricket and the same drama as RCB vs LSG. Delhi were bowled out for 172 after another sloppy half-century from captain David Warner and a completely contrasting 25-ball 54 from Akshar Patel but it was the Aussie duo of Cameron Green and Tim David who finally pushed Mumbai Indians to the limit. completed a six-wicket victory.
Rohit Sharma’s 66 off 45 balls – his first half-century in 24 IPL innings – and Tilak Verma’s flamboyant 41 off 29 balls put MI on course for a straightforward victory, but Mukesh Kumar’s successive balls in the 16th over but they are outth Chasing turned the tables.
South African pacer Anrich Nortje, the bright spark in Delhi’s bowling so far, had only five runs to defend in the final over. Bowling fast and bowling yorkers repeatedly, Nortje conceded only three runs from five balls before Green (17*) and David (13*) struck a couple of last-ball ducks in quick succession to take Mumbai to 173 for 4 in 20 overs. Helped to take on the run.
Vintage Dhoni pretty low as RR pipe CSK
Completing the hat-trick of last-ball matches last week was the encounter between hosts Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, in which MS Dhoni’s two sixes in the last over were not enough for his team to post 200.th Play as Captain.
On a usually sluggish Chennai surface, Rajasthan were 85 for 3 after 10 overs but managed to post 175 in the end. From there, how their spinners would fare was where the match hinged, and Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal and Adam Zampa collectively took five wickets in 12 overs to concede 95 runs.
This left Sandeep Sharma with 20 runs to defend from six balls, and despite bowling two wides and then being hit for two sixes by Dhoni at the start of the over, he used his wits to secure a three-run win for Rajasthan. maintained. Dhoni’s 17-ball 32* gave CSK fans hope, but ultimately the home side had left themselves with a lot to do.
Brook repaid SRH faith with maiden IPL century
When Sunrisers Hyderabad owners shelled out Rs 13.5 crore for upcoming England batsman Harry Brook in the IPL player auction earlier this year, the reaction was divided. Sure, the 24-year-old was rewriting the record books in Test cricket in the first few months of his England career, scoring 80 off 75 balls in his second ODI followed by 81* off 35 balls in the T20Is vs Pakistan. , But wasn’t that a lot of money to bet on a rookie?
In three innings in IPL 2023, and Brook faced 39 balls, scoring 13, 3 and 13 runs. He was batted in the middle order and as an opener, but the manner of his dismissals and low scores had angered Sunrisers Hyderabad fans on social media. This past week, Brook emphatically punctuated his tag as a future superstar by smashing his maiden IPL century of 223 off just 55 balls, to seal a 23-run win over Kolkata.
And in doing so, Brook silenced his unwanted critics. “I think I was putting too much pressure on myself after the first few matches. People on social media start calling you ‘rubbish’. They were slamming me a few days ago. To be honest, I am glad I can give them I just went into ‘don’t care’ mode and played,” Brooks later said.
Brook’s innings was divided into two distinct halves and included three sixes and 12 fours and took SRH to a season’s highest total of 228/4, which was well out of reach for KKR despite another fine innings from Rinku. Proved out, scoring 58* off 31 balls. And captain Nitish Rana scored 75 runs in 41 balls. T20 World Cup winner Brook hit seven boundaries in his 16 balls he faced but then slowed down against the KKR spinners as their skipper Aiden Markram smashed a 26-ball 50. But once New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson came on to bowl, Brook took him for 23 runs in an over and never looked back.
Iyer broke the wait of 15 years, but KKR lost to Mumbai
At a packed Wankhede Stadium on Sunday, the pre-match buzz was about Arjun Tendulkar’s long-awaited IPL debut, and then when Suryakumar Yadav came out for the toss and revealed that Rohit Sharma was out with a stomach, but he Said he was on the substitutes list, you knew this was going to be a special match.
But the real highlight was his 51-ball 104, which Venkatesh Iyer effectively slammed on one leg after suffering a bad blow to his right ankle off the ninth ball. Iyer’s maiden T20 century was also Kolkata’s first since Brendon McCullum’s brilliant 158 not out in the first IPL match in 2008, and it was indeed a remarkable innings as KKR’s next best came in 11 balls from Andre Russell. It was 21 runs.
Remarkably, until Shardul Thakur hit one boundary in 12th Over, all the previous boundaries in KKR’s innings came off Iyer’s bat. By then he had hit five fours and eight sixes. Iyer kept hitting till he was dismissed for 104 in 18th Over, but Mumbai did well in the last five overs conceding just 45 runs and thus restricting the score to 85.
Rohit came out to bat as Mumbai’s impact player, but he didn’t last long. Ishan Kishan’s flamboyant 58 off 25 balls set the pace for Mumbai’s chase, and after a run of poor form, Suryakumar hit 43 off 25 before Tim David (23* off 11) took the chase to 18 Did.th Above.