Making his debut for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Ishan Kishan laid claim to him being the missing piece of the SRH puzzle as he scored a memorable century at home against Rajasthan Royals. Noor Ahmed, on the other hand, justified his price tag with a four-fer winning the Classico for Chennai Super Kings.
There were a lot of questions when Sunrisers Hyderabad went all out for Ishan Kishan at the mega auction considering what their batting line up had achieved last season. In Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen and Nitish Kumar Reddy, the runner ups from last season already had enough firepower to bulldoze their way past any bowling line up. However, one position in the team that had proved to be a pain point last season was the No.3 spot where Rahul Tripathi had struggled and eventually Reddy had slotted into.
In the first game of the season, Kishan stepped into the vacant position as if it was second nature to him and terrorized the Rajasthan bowlers with an unbeaten 106, comprising 11 boundaries and six big hits. The “supporting cast” around him did their bit as well with the hosts putting up a massive 286 in the first innings – the second highest score in IPL history behind the 287 scored by the same team last season.
Having already acquired the services for Ravichandran Ashwin for almost 10 crore in the mega auction, Chennai went all out for Afghan phenom Noor Ahmed, dishing out another 10 cr. However, the Afghan justified the price tag in the very first game by claiming a four-fer at Chepauk. The youngster claimed the scalps of Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Robin Minz and Namad Dhir to restrict Mumbai to a sub par 155. The Chennai batters led by captain Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rachin Ravindra led the chase as the hosts beat Mumbai in the first game of the season again.
The internet was more than happy with the entertainment on offer with a lot of memes, mostly at Mumbai’s expense, flooding the major social media platforms.
