The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 just witnessed the birth of a star as debutant Devdutt
Padikkal dominated SunRisers Hyderabad bowlers to help Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) off to a flier in the third match of the season in Dubai, UAE on Monday.
Padikkal, 20, has been making news for all the right reasons with his performances in the domestic circuit. The Karnataka batsman was the top scorer in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali tournaments.
After a cautious start, the left-handed batsman hit his first boundary off the first ball of the second over, bowled by seasoned Sandeep Sharma. A dot ball, and another four as the youngster displayed his class.
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In the fourth over, he hit T Natarajan for three fours.
He then brought up fifty with a four in 36 balls. In the process, he joined the likes of RCB legends Chris Gayle (102*), AB de Villiers (54*), Yuvraj Singh (52*) to score half-century on debut.
Interestingly, Padikkal previously scored fifties in First-class (7 & 77 vs Maharashtra), List A (58 vs Jharkhand), and T20 (53* vs Uttarakhand) too.
Here's one stunning shot:
And the highlights:
Meanwhile, SRH bowler Mitchell Marsh limped off after 4.4 overs with Fabian Allen taking his place in the field as sub.
SRH skipper David Warner won the toss and opted to field first.
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Playing XIs
SRH: David Warner (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Priyam Garg,
Abhishek Sharma, Mitchell Marsh, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Sandeep Sharma.
RCB: Aaron Finch, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Josh Philippe (wk), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn, Yuzvendra Chahal.
