IPL 2019: A round-up of week 2
Posted on April 6, 2019 April 6, 2019 by The Popping Crease
Week 2 of IPL 2019 began and KKR's Andre Russell continued his explosive form, with his first half-century of IPL 2019, against Delhi Capitals.
Prithvi Shaw raced to 99 for Delhi before the game slipped away from them and took us to the first Super Over of this year's edition of the IPL.
Delhi batted first in the Super Over and scored 10-1, it was left to Kagiso Rabada to defend 11 runs in 6 balls for his team to win, and out walked Andre Russell. This wasn't going to be easy.
KG Rabada bowled 6 of the best deliveries he could ever bowl, yorker after yorker, nailed Russell straight on middle stump to bowl him out, and successfully defended the runs. Delhi won the match, and it was KKR's first loss of the season.
Delhi Capitals' second game of the week, this time against KXIP, was not as fortunate. After cruising to victory, needing 23 runs off 21 balls with 7 wickets in hand, they proceeded to lose wickets and lose the plot. Sam Curran took a hat-trick as Delhi lost 7 wickets for 8 runs, which was the worst in IPL history, losing the match by 14 runs.
Royal Challengers Bangalore then had their 3rd game of the season, this time against SRH, who were without captain, Kane Williamson. Would this make a difference to their team, would RCB finally get a win?
David Warner and Jonny Bairstow played some of the most incredible clean hitting cricket shots you could see. In sweltering 40+ degree heat, they continuously ran quickly between the wickets and both brought up their first IPL centuries of the season.
Chasing a huge total, RCB never got close. AB failed, Kohli failed, RCB failed.
Even after the batting coming to the party in their 5th game against KKR, with Kohli, who in the course of his breathtaking innings of 84, became the all-time leading runscorer in the history of the IPL, AB and Marcus Stoinis striking the ball brilliantly, their bowling was absolutely awful.
Andre Russell, came out to bat with KKR in trouble of running out of time, but his shots were remarkable. To hit Tim Southee for 29 runs in the death overs, takes some ability. He is my player of the week.
After 5 games, RCB are still looking for their first win of the season, and are bottom of the table.
Jonny Bairstow, playing in his first IPL, has been a revelation for the Sunrisers, playing fluently and aggressively, something that the English team will hope they will see a lot of in the World Cup, next month.
Afghanistan all-rounder, Mohammad Nabi, who is in his 3rd IPL season, but having only played in 7 matches is having a phenomenal start to his IPL career, with an incredible average of 15, economy rate of 5.7, which in T20 Cricket is extraordinary, and picking up 7 wickets in his 7 games.
It is no surprise they are now no.1 in the leaderboard.
Chennai Super Kings suffered their 1st loss of the season, as Hardik Pandya (25 off 8) and Kieron Pollard (17 off 7) let rip for Mumbai Indians, scoring 77 runs off the final 5 overs, taking MI to 170-5. CSK were never in the hunt for the win, sliding to 89-5 at the fall of Ravindra Jadeja's wicket in the 15th over. Mumbai won by 37 runs.
What is frustrating to me about CSK, is the fact that Faf du Plessis has not yet featured for them this year. He's been travelling with the team, he's been in good form, and he's just sitting around. I would hope that in their next game, Shane Watson, who, in 4 innings has had 3 failures needs to be replaced by an in-form player, like Faf.
That concludes the end of week 2, we've had the excitement of a super over, a hat-trick, a couple of spectacular batting collapses, and some explosive batting.