Upload Image<\/a> and Murugan Ashwin (1\/24) in the middle overs after Arshdeep Singh’s maiden two IPL wickets.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMohammad\n Shami was expensive but came good in the final overs, scalping two \nwickets. After this win, KXIP Punjab grabbed the fourth spot in the \npoints table with 10 points to keep play-off hopes alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However,\n it was Rajasthan’s sixth loss and they will need to pull up their socks\n if they have to salvage any hopes of making it to the knockout stage. \nDefending the total, KXIP dismissed the big-hitting Jos Buttler (23) \nearly as Rajasthan reached 55 in the first six over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After \nblasting two sixes and one four, Buttler was caught by keeper Pooran as \nyoung pacer Arshdeep scalped his maiden IPL wicket. Opener Rahul \nTripathi (50) and Sanju Samson (27 off 21) added 59 runs to take \nRajasthan close to the 100-mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, after two tight overs, \nAshwin produced the breakthrough with a carrom ball in the 12th over \nwhen he cleaned up Samson, who looked to play a sweep shot. Shami then \nreturned only to concede 11 runs with Tripathi and Ajinkya Rahane \nsending him across the rope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Needing 66 off last six overs, \nTripathi completed his fifty in 44 balls before being caught at long off\n boundary by Agarwal off Ashwin. Australian Ashton Turner’s IPL debut \nended with a first-ball naught, while Jofra Archer was send back by \nShami as RR slumped to 133 for five in 17.1 overs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stuart Binny \nscored a quickfire 11-ball 33 but it was not enough as Rahane too was \ndismissed in pursuit of quick runs.Earlier in-form Rahul played a \ncontrolled innings after he lost his opening partner Chris Gayle before\n powerplay. Gayle hit three sixes and two boundaries before being sent \nback by Archer as KXIP were 39-1 at the end of powerplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \ndashing opener dispatched Unadkat for two sixes in his first over, then \nhit Dhawal Kulkarni for a six and a four before edging one off Archer \ninto the hands of wicket keeper Sanju Samson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mayank Agarwal, who\n walked in after Gayle’s fall, looked dangerous but failed to last long.\n He made 26 of 12 balls and was claimed by RR’s New Zealand spinner Ish \nSodhi as Punjab slipped to 67 for two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul then tried to steady\n the ship with Miller, who came into the side due to the last-minute \nankle injury of Australian allrounder Moises Henriques.In the 14th over,\n Rahul and Miller exploded after bringing up the hundred for KXIP. The \nduo amassed 19 runs off Sodhi’s over with Rahul smoking a massive six \nover deep square leg and Miller thumping one over long-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \ntwo batsmen piled up 20 runs in the next over with Rahul clearing the \ncover with an inside-out shot for a six off Unadkat, and Miller \ndisposing a full-toss over deep midwicket. Rahul was then picked up by \nmedium pacer Jaidev Unadkat in the 18th over with the opener hitting \nstraight to Archer at point.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skipper Ravichandran Ashwin and opener KL Rahul played pivotal roles as Kings XI Punjab produced a superb all-round performance to script a comfortable 12-run win over Rajasthan Royals in a second leg IPL clash to bring their campaign back on track. Opener Rahul hit a 47-ball 52, while Ashwin (2\/24) smashed 17 off four balls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59293,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59291\/revisions\/59293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}