Gujarat Lions continued their winning streak against Rising Pune Supergiant, as the home side defeated the visitors by a margin of seven wickets at SCA stadium in Rajkot, Gujarat.
After being asked to bat first, Rising Pune Supergiant lost the first wicket of Ajinkya Rahane with the batsman yet to open the account but skipper Steven Smith and Rahul Tripathi shared 64-runs for the second wicket to get a good start for the team.
Few small partnerships continued to be weaved by the batsmen but the biggest disappointment was to see MS Dhoni falling once again, as he was trapped in front of wickets by Ravindra Jadeja at a score of five.
An intelligent partnership of 47-runs for the sixth wicket between Ankit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary helped the team to first cross 150-run mark and reach a comfortable total.
It was the last over of the Pune’s innings when Andrew Tye stole the show with a hat-trick. He became the first bowler to take a five-fer and a hat-trick on IPL debut. Pune posted a total of 171/8 on the board.
Gujarat Lions was right behind the chase, as first wicket pair of Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum shared 94-runs for the first wicket. The succeeding batsmen cashed upon the magical start and Gujarat went on to win the game by a margin of seven wickets.
With this win, Gujarat won its first game of this year’s, whereas, Pune lost its third game out of the fourth one.
Here is what winning captain Suresh Raina said at the toss –
Suresh Raina:
“Losing 2 games it was very difficult for us. AJ bowled brilliantly. I’m very happy for him, he’s a smart cricketer and varies his pace smartly in the death overs. Jason missed out today, but Baz and Smith did the job for us. They did it for so many years for CSK and now they are doing it for us. Very happy. Couldn’t have asked for anything better (on the win in his 150th game in the IPL).”
Andrew Tye was awarded Man of the Match award for a blazing spell of 4-0-17-5. Here is what the Man of the Match said after the game –
Andrew Tye:
“It’s a good format of the game. Traditionally I would love to play Test cricket, but I loved my slower balls. Hodgy is a good coach and he lets us do our job. Pretty emotional, you gotta assess the conditions and see which ball works for you. Knuckleball was my favourite. (chuckles).”