Bhanuka Rajapaksa alights the stage with maiden IPL fifty

Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings have locked horns at Mohali for the second recreation of the Indian Premier League. Profitable the toss, KKR invited hosts Punjab to bat first. Punjab misplaced opener, Prabhsimran Singh, early within the second over. Nevertheless, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, who got here one down, had different plans and put the  KKR bowlers on backfoot. 

Rajapaksa brings up his maiden fifty

Rajapaksa, who performs worldwide cricket for Sri Lanka, was added to the Punjab Kings squad on the mega public sale for the 2022 IPL public sale. He confirmed a glimpse of a tough hitter within the final season however did not make it huge. Regardless of that, the Punjab workforce administration caught with him for the 2023 season and he made their funding fruitful within the first recreation of the season. 

Bhanuka Rajapaksa is an aggressive batter by nature. Regardless that Punjab had misplaced an early wicket, he didn’t let that have an effect on his recreation plan. He took all of KKR’s gamers with no consideration and continued his strokeplay. Sunil Narine, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Shardul Thakur, and all different KKR bowlers got the identical therapy as Rajapaksa continued hitting sixes and fours. 

The spotlight of Rajapaksa’s innings was that he hit boundaries collectively. As soon as he had put the bowler below stress, he wouldn’t cease there and proceed to hit them for a number of boundaries in the identical over. He introduced up his fifty in simply 30 balls with 5 fours and two sixes. This was Rajapaksa’s maiden fifty on the Indian Premier League. 

Earlier than this, Rajapaksa’s highest rating on the IPL was 43, which had come on his debut in opposition to the Royal Challengers Bangalore final season. Nevertheless, Rajapaksa couldn’t carry his innings ahead and was quickly eliminated by Umesh Yadav. He was making an attempt to launch a shot over long-on however was caught by Rinku Singh. Nonetheless, he set the tempo for Punjab’s innings as they’re scoring at greater than 10 runs an over. 

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