Gayle and Rahul star in Punjab victory

Chris Gayle and Lokesh Rahul struck half-centuries as Kings XI Punjab went top of the Indian Premier League yesterday with a nine-wicket win against Kolkata Knight Riders under the Duckworth/Lewis method.

Gayle hit an unbeaten 62 off 38 balls and Rahul made a rapid 60 off just 27 deliveries as Punjab reached 126-1 with 11 balls to spare.

Punjab’s target was revised to 125 in 13 overs after rain stopped play for nearly 90 minutes.

Before rain intervened, Gayle and Rahul had carried Punjab to 96-0 off just 8.2 overs after Kolkata Knight Riders, put into bat, made 191-7.

Punjab now leads the table with eight points from five matches. Kolkata has six from six after losing three and winning three.

Gayle, the hard-hitting T20 veteran, is making IPL franchises regret not picking him in the opening rounds of auction in February with knocks of 63, 104 not out and 62 not out and is currently the leading IPL run-scorer with 229 runs.

“To be honest, I didn’t strike it really well, but when you have momentum going, you need to capitalise,” Gayle said.

Rahul hit nine fours and two sixes before he top-edged a pull off Sunil Narine with Punjab needing just nine more runs.

Gayle raised the victory in style with his sixth six of the innings by smashing Tom Curran over the long-on boundary.

Gayle also hit five fours in his electrifying display of power hitting.

“Me and Chris have spoken we’re gonna back our games. If he’s going for it, doesn’t mean I take the back seat,” Rahul said. “The approach is to stay aggressive and take the opposition down.”

In yesterday’s late game, Royal Challengers Bangalore were victorious against bottom side Delhi Daredevils.

Going into today’s action, whoever wins the match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings can leapfrog Punjab and go to the top of the table.

The second match of the day sees Rajastan Royals go up against Mumbai Indians.