Favorite moments in IPL

The Indian Premier League has provided fans with various extraordinary moments. The stakes of winning and losing in the league are high as always. Every team is in a fight to compete and win the title. Every team in the league has set high standards for themselves, which ultimately gives high-quality cricket. Here we list down to you some of the best moments in the IPL’s history.

 Rajasthan Royals winning the first IPL 

Post the League’s inaugural auction, Rajasthan Royals happened to be one of the weakest teams on paper. The team didn’t have any remarkable players like the Mumbai Indians or Chennai Super Kings.  However, with Shane Warne as the skipper and head coach, Rajasthan Royal had a reliable man backing them up.

The team surprised everyone as they won 11 matches out of 14 and later faced Dehli in the semi-finals, beating them by 105 runs followed by a victory against Chennai in the finals. The Royals winning the inaugural season is a pure example of underdogs emerging victorious against all odds.

MS Dhoni’s sixes assisted Chennai to qualify

Chennai was on the verge of claiming the semi-final spot in 2010. However, there was a haunting task of beating Punjab for the same. Chennai had to face them in a do-or-die match in Dharamsala.

Batting first, Punjab amassed a total of 192 runs for 3 wickets. In the second innings, Chennai Super Kings was left in a challenging position with 44 runs needed from 18 balls. Captain MS Dhoni stood at one end. When CSK entered the last two overs, they still required 29 runs. Dhoni hit two fours in that over to bring down the total to 16 runs from the last over. With 10 required from 4 balls, Dhoni posted two huge sixes leading to their qualification.

Chris Gayle’s 175* vs Pune Warriors 

Chris Gayle gave it all during the 2013 IPL edition when he was playing against Pune Warriors India. Gayle reached his half-century feat in just 17 balls and it was then recorded as the fastest IPL half-century. In the next 13 balls, he scored his next 50 runs, again remarkably reaching the milestone of fastest ever hundred comparing through all formats of cricket.

To date, no one has been able to break the record. The Universe boss, Gayle ended with 175 not out from just 66 balls, which until now is the highest ever score by a batsman in a T20 format. Gayle hit 13 boundaries and 17 sixes during his remarkable innings which took Bangalore to 263 runs for 5 which is again the highest ever total in the IPL.

Brendon McCullum’s 158 in the inaugural match

 

 

Brendon McCullum, the New Zealand wicketkeeper, opened the innings with Ganguly during the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League. The match witnessed, McCullum hitting the Bangalore bowlers all over the Chinnaswamy Stadium. And that’s when he hit IPL’s first ever century and followed by 150 runs.

This was the first time when a batsman had crossed that benchmark in the shorter format of the match. He winded up with 158 not-out runs from 73 balls, which included 10 boundaries and 13 sixes.

CSK winning the IPL on their comeback

The BCCI was forced to ban the Chennai franchise for two years in 203 due to match-fixing allegations. All the players were auctioned off to other teams. But, ahead of the 2018 edition, Chennai returned to its operation at its fullest. Their top players remained the same which included MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, and Faf du Plessis, they form the core of the team.

CSK successfully qualified for the playoffs and went on to first beat Sunrisers Hyderabad and entered the final. And then again had a face-off against Hyderabad once again in the final. It was Shane Watson’s century that helped Chennai claim the trophy for their 3^rd time.