Daredevils batting line up is considered as one of the weak in IPL 8 but they too scored 184 with the help of skipper JP Duminy against the likes of Tim Southee, James Faulkner, Chris Morris of Rajasthan. But despite the big total to defend, DD bowlers went down and Rajasthan snatched a thrilling last ball victory by 3 wickets. The only star bowler of match was Imran Tahir who picked up 4 wickets and is currently the leading wicket taker with five.
Riding on skipper Bailey's 32 ball 61, Kings XI Punjab scored 177 against Mumbai. But what happened next was probably one of the best moments of this season so far. After going down to 59/6, Harbhajan Singh smashed 64 off just 24 deliveries including 6 sixes and five fours that gave a bit of scars to Punjab camp but it was just not enough take Mumbai home.
Along with Bhajji, one of the unknown player in IPL, Jagadeesha Suchith also scored 34 off just 21 and built a 100 run stand with him. Punjab bowlers dominated the first half of the game, but despite a win the innings by these two lower order batsmen overshadowed them.
It was in 8th match of the season when any team was bowled out for the first time. RCB posted 166/10 on board but Sunrisers' batsmen chased down the target easily with more than 2 overs remaining. Here the ‘David Dhawan' (David Warner-Shikhar Dhawan) show of Sunrisers Hyderabad outclassed the lowly Bangalore bowling attack.
It was yet another great show of batting display in the Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals clash on April 14. Mumbai was down to 45/3 in first 10 overs but Kieron Pollard (70 off 34) and Corey Anderson played some big knocks and pulled the team out of trouble to score a dominating total of 164.
Steven Smith made the target look very easy continue his habit of scoring runs and smashed 79 off 53 and took Rajasthan Royals for their third consecutive win in the tournament.
The batsmen have solely dominated the IPL 8 so far with average run scored in 9 games is 337.44 runs per match which means an average score per innings would be 168.72. While with the total of 102 wickets fallen in 9 games, 11 is an average of wicket taken by the bowlers per game. That means the average wicket taken per innings would be just 6.
However with around five weeks of IPL still left and the likes of Mitchell Starc and Adam Milne sitting out, one can expect a lot more on-field fireworks not just by the batsmen but the bowlers as well.
