The third match of the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is being played between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) won the toss and elected to bowl first. Devdutt Padikkal and Aaron Finch opened the innings and gave RCB a stormy start. In his debut IPL match, Padikkal stole half-century and have made a record. Devdutt smashed 56 runs off 42 balls and during this he hit 8 fours.
Padikkal has done something that even a veteran batsman like Virat Kohli could not do for RCB.
No batsman of RCB could able to make a century in his debut IPL match. Shreevats Goswami was the first batsman to make a half-century in his debut IPL match for RCB, who did so in the 2008 season. Since then, no RCB batsman has been able to make a half-century in his debut IPL match.
On the other hand, in 2016, Sam Billings had made a half-century in his debut IPL match. Then he had scored 54 runs for Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals). Since then, it is only Devdutt, who has made a half-century in his debut match in IPL.
The Karnataka batsman came into the spotlight after scoring 580 runs in Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament in 2019, India’s domestic T20 tournament. The attacking batsman was the leading run stealer in the tournament by a big margin and scored the runs at an average of 64 and a whopping strike rate of above 175.
The 20-year old Karnataka batsman had a brilliant first season in domestic cricket, scoring more than 900 runs in first-class cricket and averaged close to 60 in List A format.
