Suresh Raina blows away Kings XI Punjab with a whirlwind knock of 87 runs.
The 2014 edition of IPL was the one where Glenn Maxwell announced his arrival in world cricket. The right-handed Australian all-rounder won the hearts of the fans with his clean hitting in the IPL. Unfortunately though the Kings XI Punjab could not win the IPL title that year. They reached the final however, Kolkata Knight Riders downed them courtesy of Manish Pandey’s brilliance with the bat.
Speaking of Kings XI Punjab’s IPL 2014 campaign, they faced a few hiccups on their road to the final. They had made it to the Qualifier 1 match after securing a spot in the top two of the points table. Punjab locked horns with Kolkata in the first Qualifier however, they could not seal their place in the finale. This forced them to battle against Chennai Super Kings in the second Qualifier of the playoffs.
Chennai Super Kings were bamboozled by Virender Sehwag’s century as the right-handed Indian batsman hit a century and took the Punjabi side to massive score. Kings XI Punjab eventually posted 226 runs on the board at the loss of six wickets in their 20 overs. Chasing 227 runs, Chennai lost one wicket early which invited Suresh Raina to the crease.
Raina launched a counter attack on Punjab and completely shattered the opposition bowling attack. He brought up his fastest IPL fifty ever enroute to his 87 runs off 25 deliveries. The left-handed batsman struck 12 fours and six sixes in the 25 balls he faced.
This shows that only seven balls of his innings were the ones where Raina did not score a boundary. He aggregated 84 runs in boundaries unfortunately, he could not reach the triple figures milestone. This led to Chennai Super Kings’ defeat as the yellow outfit ended its innings at 202 runs for the loss of 7 wickets.
Watch Video of Raina’s innings here.
M59: KXIP vs CSK– Suresh Raina’s 87 https://t.co/kBJziyCf51 via @ipl
— swagcricket (@swagcricket) February 21, 2020
