Royal Challengers Bangalore’s right-arm fast bowler, Mohammed Siraj has become the first bowler to bowl two maiden overs in the same Indian Premier League (IPL) match. He made this unique record while playing against Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. He returned figures of three wickets for no runs from his first two overs.
Siraj destructed KKR’s top order in his first two overs as he dismissed Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana and Tom Banton without conceding a run. The right-arm bowler gave away a run only in his third over and finished his first spell of three overs with figures of 3-2-2-3.
Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to bat first. Batting first, KKR could manage to score only 84 for 8, which is the lowest score, a team has made in the allotted 20 overs. KKR’s top order was shattered like a pack of cards.
While Rahul Tripathi (1) was caught behind by AB de Villiers off the third ball of the second over of the innings, Nitish Rana (0) was bowled by on the very next ball of the same over. Tom Banton foiled Siraj’s hopes of a hat-trick but the England batsman could not last long as Siraj got him caught behind as well for 10.
KKR was 3 for 3 in the fourth over when Shubman Gill holed out to Chris Morris off Navdeep Saini for 1. Soon after Gill, Banton was also dismissed on the third ball of the fourth over. Dinesh Karthik and KKR skipper also couldn’t contribute much for their side as they got dismissed for 4 and 30 respectively.
Mohammed Siraj took 34 IPL wickets in 30 matches at 27.94 and an economy rate of 9.13 with best figures of 4 for 32.