Punjab down Rising Pune Supergiant by 6 wickets

Glenn Maxwell celebrated his captaincy debut by top-scoring and powering his team Kings XI Punjab to a comfortable 6-wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiant at Indore. After putting RPS in, KXIP – making their first appearance in VIVO IPL 2017 - did extremely well to restrict them to 163-6, and then chased down the runs in 19 overs.

164 was a tricky chase, but KXIP were provided a brisk start by Hashim Amla and Manan Vohra, who added 27 runs in under three overs. Wriddhiman Saha, sent in to bat at number three, cracked three boundaries in a 9-ball cameo. Amla (28) and Axar Patel, who was sent in at four to counter Imran Tahir’s leg-spin, added 34 in 5.2 overs, before both batsmen were dismissed in successive overs just past the halfway mark.

KXIP needed 79 runs from 8.5 overs at that stage with two new batsmen – Maxwell and David Miller – at the crease. The match was pretty much in the balance at that stage, but both batsmen batted with a high degree of confidence and knew just when to tee off. Maxwell hit four sixes – one off the debutant Rahul Chahar, one off Ben Stokes and two off Imran Tahir – and dominated the unbeaten 79-run partnership; Maxwell remained unbeaten on 44 (made from 20 balls), while Miller walked back with an unbeaten 30 (27 balls, 1 four, 2 sixes).

Earlier in the evening, RPS were powered to a competitive total by Ben Stokes’ half-century and a cameo from Manoj Tiwary. RPS found themselves in a spot of bother by the time nine overs had been bowled; they had lost both the openers and the run-machine Steven Smith in this period. Things became more difficult a little while later when MS Dhoni hit one straight back to Swapnil Singh; RPS 71 for 4 in the twelfth.

Stokes, batting at four, and Manoj Tiwary, batting at six, then added 61 runs to resurrect the innings and help RPS reach a respectable score. Stokes brought up his maiden IPL half-century in the 17th over and perished immediately after. Manoj Tiwary hit Mohit Sharma for a six and a boundary in the 19th over, while Daniel Christian teed off against Sandeep Sharma in the final over and helped himself to two fours and a six. Courtesy the 30 runs in the last two overs, RPS reached 163-6.

Axar Patelreturned with respectable figures of 1-27 from his four overs, while Sandeep Sharma picked up two wickets – one in the first over of the match and another in the last over of the innings.

Brief Scores

Rising Pune Supergiant: 163-6 (Ben Stokes 50, Manoj Tiwary 40*, Sandeep Sharma 2-33) lost to Kings XI Punjab: 164-4 in 19.0 Overs (Glenn Maxwell 44*, David Miller 30*, Imran Tahir 2-29) by 6 wickets.

Man of the Match: Glenn Maxwell

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