Twitter Reactions: KXIP's KL Rahul gives RCB a KLaasy desert ride in Dubai

The Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) have literally blew away the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the match 6 of the Indian Premier League (IPL).  It was KL Rahul all the way through the innings after he lost the toss and was invited to bat first. Despite the fact that none of the other batsmen got going like him, KXIP’s run-rate never dipped all thanks to their skipper.

Mayank Agarwal looked decent once again and backed up his 89-run knock in the first game with another sedate 26 before getting out to Yuzvendra Chahal. Nicholas Pooran walked in at three only to give away his wicket to Shivam Dube after crawling his way to 17 off 18 balls. But even then, the run-rate was well above 8 due to KL Rahul who was literally toying with the RCB bowling.

Glenn Maxwell failed to get going as well and the number five Karun Nair turned out to be lucky as he got the best seat in the house to watch one of the best IPL innings ever. To make things worse, Virat Kohli dropped his counterpart twice and Rahul made them pay quite heavily. After playing almost in the same way for the whole innings, he shifted gears dramatically in the the last two overs.

Dale Steyn and Shivam Dube had to face the wrath as KXIP scored 49 runs. Rahul, in the process, got to his century and ended up unbeaten on 132 off just 69 balls with 14 fours and seven sublime sixes. This helped KXIP post a mammoth total of 206 runs for the loss of only three wickets with only Chahal doing well for RCB.

RCB collapse

RCB and collapses is a match made in heaven it seems. They never seemed to be up for the chase right from the word go. Devdutt Padikkal, Josh Phillipe and Virat Kohli all were back in the hut by the third over itself with only four runs on the board. Aaron Finch and AB de Villiers tried to rebuild the innings but the pressure of the required run-rate got to them.

Ravi Bishnoi showed his class again castling Finch and soon in the next over, De Villiers, the last hope followed him after scoring 28. At 57/5, RCB desperately needed their rest of the batsmen to score as many runs as they can. But all they could add was 52 runs and get bowled out for 109 after 17 overs to lose the game by a mammoth 97 runs. This loss will definitely hurt their net run-rate now and they will have to comeback strongly in the tournament going ahead.

For the KXIP, Bishnoi and Murugan Ashwin picked three wickets each while Sheldon Cottrell and Mohammed Shami did the early damage. However, it was all about KL Rahul who owned the day and single-handedly defeated RCB by 23 runs.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: