Yashasvi Jaiswal made it to the history books of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with his sensational knock of 98* against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Thursday. He lit up the Eden Gardens with his batting as he smashed as many as 13 fours and five sixes. Jaiswal also smashed the fastest ever fifty in IPL history reaching the 50-run mark in just 13 deliveries while he also went past Prithvi Shaw to score most runs in the first over of the innings. Jaiswal scored 26 runs in the first over off Nitish Rana.
Meanwhile, amidst all such huge records, Jaiswal yet another achievement went unnoticed as he equalled Virat Kohli's feat. The left-handed batter smashed the first two balls of his team's innings for six to become only the second batter after Kohli to do so. Virat Kohli had hit two sixes off the first two deliveries of the innings against Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2019 when the match was reduced to five overs per side.
While Kohli, then RCB skipper, had taken apart Varun Aaron to get going right from the word go, Jaiswal surprised KKR skipper Nitish Rana who himself surprised many by bowling the first over of the innings. There was no letoff from Jaiswal after the first two sixes either as he ended up smashing 26 runs in the over making it the joint second-most expensive first over ever in the history of IPL.
Interestingly, Rana was asked about the reason for bowling the first over when he had the likes of Suyash Sharma, Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine up his sleeve. In response, he stated that the plan was to make the batter complacent. However, things did not work for KKR this time around. "He was batting well right through the tournament, so I thought a part-time spinner could perhaps make him complacent, that was the plan, but he played superbly and those things do happen," Rana said.
