Two wickets from his four overs at an economy of 4.25, he has been exceptional. The 27-year-old Siddarth Kaul punched above his weight and produced a match-winning spell. He first scalped the all-important wicket of Rajasthan Royals’ skipper Ajinkya Rahane.
However, Rahane tried to set the scorers to good use by being busy at the crease. He made a run-a-ball 13 and got out in the seventh over of the innings. Kaul kept bowling the short ones and hardly lost his line.
He was rewarded later as K Gowtham failed to read Kaul’s delivery and sent a catch down to Wriddhiman Saha.
Gowtham was bought by the Royals for a hefty INR 6.2 crore but couldn’t do much in his IPL debut. The Royals’ batters struggled on a slow and dry track.
All-rounder Shakib-Al-Hasan bagged a couple of wickets in his four overs. The Royals posted a total of 125 for nine on the board.
Chasing a below par total of 126, the men in blue started on the wrong note as opener Shikhar Dhawan got dropped on naught. He went on to punish the Royals by scoring an unbeaten 77 off 57 balls. The southpaw put the ball out of the ropes on 13 occasions and hit a maximum.
Sunrisers’ skipper Kane Williamson found his groove and played the role of second fiddle to Dhawan. Williamson made a 35-ball 36 and remained unbeaten to lead his side to a win in their season opener.
Siddarth Kaul credits domestic show:
Kaul credited his domestic performance for the impressive show. On missing their former skipper David Warner, Kaul said they know how to move on from the loss.
“I was working a lot in the domestic season and in the nets and tonight it came off. It was a small total but it’s tricky sometimes when you chase small totals. But our team has great experience and we did it. We are missing him [Warner] but the players are coping and they know what to do and when to do it. Thanks to god, everything’s happening really well and I’m looking forward to the coming games.” Kaul said.
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