Twitter Reactions: Gutsy Rahul Tripathi seals win for RPS at Edens

Rahul Tripathi played the innings of his life to deflate KKR at their home ground. His innings of 93 set up a tricky chase of 156 as RPS got home with 4 wickets in hand and 4 balls to spare.

Sending Tripathi to open the innings was the best possible move taken by RPS this season. The right-hander has ever since been amongst the runs and today was no exception. Losing the wickets of Ajinkya Rahane and Steve Smith – two renowned batsmen in world cricket at the moment – did not deter Tripathi as he went after the bowling.

He was severe on KKR’s overseas bowler: Nathan Coulter-Nile. The Australian’s second over resulted in 19 runs as Tripathi smacked 3 boundaries and a six. That was not the end of it. Gambhir persisted with Coulter-Nile and this time the opener took 15 runs from the over, which included a pull shot which sailed over the midwicket boundary for a six.

The 26-year old did not let Kuldeep Yadav to settle in as he got stuck into the chinaman bowler. Yadav was looking for wickets and was floating the ball right up to Tripathi who took the challenge and struck 3 sixes in a row in the 13^th over. It was clean-striking and keeping it very simple. The hattrick of sixes punctured KKR’s any hopes of clawing their way back into the game.

Tripathi quickly moved to 81 off just 38 balls faced. He was striking at 213. He showed maturity after the counter attack to slow down and take the chase deeper. In between his brutal striking, RPS had lost all of their key players as Dhoni and Stokes joined Rahane and Smith back in the dug-out.

As everyone was anticipating a fairytale hundred, but he fell 7 runs short as he was caught brilliantly by the substitute fielder Rovman Powell.

The sensational aspect about Tripathi’s 93 off 52 was that he did it without any support from the star players at the other end, as the next highest score for the RPS was Stokes 15. Here are the twitter reactions to a blinder of an innings by Rahul Tripathi: