Andrew Tye dedicates Purple Cap to his late grandmother

JAIPUR: Andrew Tye’s figures of 4-0-34-4 helped him become the Purple Cap holder during KIXP’s match against RR. However, his achievement was tinged with sadness after the Australian pacer revealed that he had lost his grandmother on Tuesday.

During the mid-innings break, a visibly emotional Tye told former South African skipper and current commentator Graeme Smith the sad news. “My grandmother passed away today. I would like to dedicate this to her and to my whole family. It has been a very emotional and tough day,” Tye said, fighting back tears. During the game, the 31-year-old was sporting an armband in which the word Grandma was written. On being awarded the Purple Cap, Tye became emotional and in a choked voice, said he always enjoyed playing cricket. “I love coming down here and putting on a show for the crowd. We have a great bunch of guys,” Tye said.

In the game against Rajasthan Royals, Tye got the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane (9) in his first spell and in the final over of the innings, he got the wickets of Ben Stokes (14), Jofra Archer (0) and Jaydev Unadkat (0) to restrict Rajasthan Royals to 158/8.

Tye, who was picked for Kings XI Punjab for ~7.4 crore in the IPL Auction in February 2018, has made a mark in the tournament during his time with Gujarat Lions in 2017.

During the game against Rising Pune Supergiant in Rajkot, Tye took a hat-trick on IPL debut by getting rid of Ankit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary and Shardul Thakur to end with figures of 5/17.