Kings XI stun unbeatable Lions in their own den

RAJKOT: Axar Patel did the star turn as laggards Kings XI Punjab rode on the left-arm spinner’s hat-trick to upset table toppers Gujarat Lions by 23 runs in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here today.

This was the first hat-trick of the ongoing 9th edition of the league.

After posting 154, Kings XI got the ideal start to the second innings with the early wickets of Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina, both missing straight balls from Mohit Sharma. After a slow Powerplay, Axar was brought on in the seventh over. Dwayne Smith muscled a lofted drive to long-off. Two balls later, Axar got one to skid through and Dinesh Karthik’s inside edge clattered into leg stump. Another slider from Axar and Dwayne Bravo, too, chopped on.

Axar, reintroduced in the 11th over, got his first ball to dart past Ravindra Jadeja’s outside edge. It seemed like bat hit pad, but the umpire raised his finger as Axar completed the 14th IPL hat-trick.

Thereafter, Lions were always behind the climbing asking rate. Newly-appointed captain M Vijay rotated his bowlers continuously. Ishan Kishan and James Faulkner took Lions closer, but too much damage had been done.

At the halfway stage, it did not seem like Kings XI had enough. Despite a flying start from Vijay and Marcus Stoinis, Kings XI collapsed to 154. Vijay’s sweetly-timed drives and flicks off Lions’s seamers — Dhawal Kulkarni and Praveen Kumar — meant Kings XI scored 34 off the first four overs. Vijay contributed 31 of those. Marcus Stoinis, then, cut loose as the openers plundered 59 off the Powerplay, their highest this season.

In the seventh over, Stoinis ran past a slider from Jadeja, sparking another Kings XI collapse. Chinaman bowler Shivil Kaushik’s whippy action forced the Kings XI batsmen to look for pushes and nudges. Shaun Marsh couldn’t keep one of those flicks down as he found midwicket.

On a pitch with a bit of grass, Kaushik found no turn, but his quick-arm action caused the ball to skid off the surface. Glenn Maxwell missed an attempted a cut off Kaushik’s next delivery as the ball snuck under his bat. Dinesh Karthik belted out an appeal and the umpire raised his finger, much to Maxwell’s bewilderment.

Kings XI’s problems worsened when Gurkeerat Singh, one of four changes for Kings XI, was run out after an acrobatic effort from James Faulkner at point. Kings XI stuttered from 65 for 0 to 73 for 4 as the Lions bowlers found their lengths to limit the batsmen to singles.

David Miller and Wriddhiman Saha, though, found the boundary regularly in their 39-run stand as the pair laid a strong platform for a late surge. That did not come as Dwayne Bravo and Praveen Kumar brought out their slower balls to flummox Kings XI’s lower order. Lions conceded one four off the last three overs and picked up five wickets to bowl Kings XI out for 154.

Lions suffered the worst of two collapses to stutter to their second loss of the season, in eight games.