The 13th match between Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiant took off in grand style, as Lion’ skipper Suresh Raina pulled off a stunner to dismiss opener Ajinkya Rahane in the first over itself.
The super athletic dive which saw him fly to his left and grab the ball with his left hand, left everyone’s mouth open.
Veteran swing bowler Praveen Kumar started off the proceedings for the Lions after they won the toss and chose to bowl first.
The first two deliveries of the over ended up as dot balls, prompting Rahane to rush and get off the mark. Unfortunately, the right-hander could not middle the ball and instead ended up edging the back straight to third slip while trying to dab the ball to the third man only to find Suresh Raina complete a superb catch.
Despite the loss, the Pune side recovered quickly to get going. Opener Rahul Tripathi and Steve Smith put up an attacking 64 runs stand for the second wicket to make the early loss of Rahane meaningless for the opposition. Unfortunately, the stand was broken just a ball before the end of the powerplay after Tripathi was removed by Andrew Tye for 33 runs off 17 deliveries at a strike rate of 194.11.
The two sides are clashing today with a hope of achieving some momentum for the tournament. These two teams are currently the top two lowest ranked in the points table with Rising Pune Supergiant occupying the seventh spot with two points to their credit and the Gujarat Lions sitting with the wooden spoon waiting for their first victory.
Quite evidently, both teams made a slew of changes in their starting XI. The Lions swapped four places bringing in Andrew Tye, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishan Kishan and Shadab Jakati in place of Shivil Kaushik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jason Roy and Tejas Baroka.
RPSG left out Faf du Plessis and brought in Ankit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary. New Zealand fast bowler Lockie Ferguson got his debut while Shardul Thakur is also playing. Steve Smith also was back fully fit after missing out the last game due to illness.
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