Two days before his 30th birthday, K L Rahul owned the Brabourne stadium on Saturday and how!
The Lucknow Super Giants captain didn't have luck go his way at the toss, so when he was asked to bat, he decided to make his own luck.
Rahul came to the crease with a positive mindset and on a good batting track he started piling on the runs from the get go. He got off the mark with a four off just the second ball of the innings and didn't take his foot off the pedal thereafter.
He played some elegant drives and pull shots, showcasing his whole range of skills while hitting boundaries and maximums. He stitched up a half-century stand with fellow-opener Quinton de Kock and then counter-attacked beautifully with Manish Pandey, rotating the strike nicely and then as the innings progressed he picked his bowlers and took them on. He got to his half ton in the 12th over as Pandey and he took 8 runs off Jasprit Bumrah.
He was particularly severe on debutant Fabian Allen and Tymal Mills and he got to his century off just 56 balls, with a cut shot to the backward point boundary in the penultimate over of the innings.
A century in his 100th IPL match!
While batting, Rahul showed great finesse and class to score an unbeaten century; He was equally adept while marshalling his troops, making the right bowling changes to successfully defend 199 even though Mumbai's Keiron Pollard and Jayadev Unadkat briefly threatened to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Rahul stamped his class all through the match to rightly be our Top Performer.
