Finch, Tye back Gayle in Kings’ IPL win

Chris Gayle scored his 21st T20 century and the first century of IPL 2018 as he made 104 runs off 62 balls for Kings XI Punjab in Mohali.

Riding on Gayle wave, Punjab posted a commanding 193 for three in their share of 20 overs. The team has a decent pace attack with Mohit Sharma, Andrew Tye and Barinder Sran.

SRH’s bowling has been considered the best so far in 2018 IPL, until Gayle came and tore them apart. Bowls in the middle overs – where Punjab’s brittle middle order has already shown multiple collapses, and in the death overs, where wickets are never too far.

The 16th match of the Indian Premier League is between Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, Dhawan and Manish Pandey along with allrounders such as Deepak Hooda and Carlos Braithwaite are very much capable of doing the job. The Jamaican master had a point to prove and like he did in 2011 (again had gone unsold) Gayle silenced his critics in style and won his second consecutive man of the match award and again proved that “old is gold”.

Gayle and KL Rahul started off strongly, building a 53-run partnership after which KL Rahul departed. The Afghan spinner was taken to the cleaners by Chris Gayle and ended his spell with forgettable figures of 4-0-55-1. Medium pacer Siddarth Kaul provided another jolt to the hosts, packing back incoming batsman Mayank Agarwal (18) in the 11th over.

Kings XI Punjab will play against Sunrisers Hyderabad on their home ground on Thursday; they intend to continue their victory campaign and prevent the chariot of Hyderabad. MI on the other hand had a rough start, losing all their matches except against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Gayle was the glue Punjab needed and their third win of the season now pitchforks them as the most unsafe side in this competition – something the visiting Sunrisers Hyderabad team will carry back home.

SRH might have been unbeaten before this match, but they would know that batting is not their stronger suit. Led by the young Kiwi captain, Kane Williamson, the team is a ideal blend of senior and junior players.

On the other side, KKR’s performance is a little better than DD.

He has some good guys to beat here including an early candidate for Player of the Tournament in Rashid Khan (9/4), the wily Buvi Kumar (11/4) and Shakib Al-Hasan (7/2), the incredibly accurate left-arm spinner.

Kings XI Punjab: Ravichandran Ashwin (captain), KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Aaron Finch, Yuvraj Singh, Karun Nair, David Miller, Marcus Stoinis, Axar Patel, AJ Tye, Mohit Sharma and Mujeeb ur Rahman.

After Kolkata steamrolled past Rajasthan last night, we now move our focus to Mohali, where Kings XI Punjab take on unbeaten Sunrisers Hyderabad.

With Star India now acquiring the media rights from Sony Pictures Network India for the upcoming season, the matches will be telecast on various Star Sports channels.