Published: Apr 10, 2016, 10:54 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 10, 2016, 03:13 PM (IST)
The inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 was played between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) at Wankhede Stadium on Saturday. After the big hype, the opening game didn’t go the way it was expected to be. Batting first, MI were never into the match as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals and after 11th over, they were six wickets down for 51. Thanks to Harbhajan Singh’s cameo of 30-ball 45 due to which MI were able to post a respectable total of 121 runs. On the other hand, RPS opener Ajinkya Rahane made the chase look unchallenging and simple with some clean hitting along with Faf du Plessis. Further, Pietersen joined the party and Rahane finished the game with a massive six. The first game of IPL 2016 saw few records being shattered and set and Abhishek Kumar presents such interesting statistical highlights from the match. IPL 2016, Match 1: Rising Pune Supergiants beat Mumbai Indians by 9 wickets at Mumbai, Stars and Flops
1. First instance in the history of IPL when four bowlers took their first wicket on their first ball of the game. It all started with Ishant Sharma and then followed by Mitchell Marsh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Rajat Bhatia. IPL 9: 13 ‘firsts’ in Indian Premier League this season
2. With this match, MI becomes the second team to play opening games of IPL for the fifth time. Kolkata Knight Riders were the first team to play five IPL opening games.
3. This was 300th Twenty20 (T20) match for Kieron Pollard and he is the only cricketer to have achieved this landmark.
4. This was 100th T20 match for Ishant Sharma in his career.
5. First instance of MI’s top four batsman getting dismissed in single-digit scores.
6. Ambati Rayudu scored 22 runs in this match and completed his 2000 runs in his IPL career. He scored all his runs for MI and he is the third player to cross 2000 runs for MI after Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma.
7. First instance in the history of IPL when six bowlers took wicket in their first over of the match. It started with Ishant Sharma and followed by Mitchell Marsh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rajat Bhatia, Murugan Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh.
8. This was R Vinay Kumar’s 100th IPL match. He is 13th player to achieve this feat in IPL. Suresh Raina has played 132 matches in IPL, which is the most by any player.
9. Rahane scored his 19th fifty in IPL. Only six batsmen have more fifties than him with Virat Kohli having the same number of half-centuries in IPL.
10. Harbhajan scored an unbeaten knock of 30-balls 45 run while batting at number eight. This is the second highest score by any batsman at number eight position. Highest was also scored by Harbhajan itself against Kings XI Punjab at the same venue in 2015. He scored 24-ball 64.
11. With one wicket in this match, Harbhajan becomes the second joint highest wickettaker in IPL with 111 wickets. Amit Mishra has also picked similar number of wickets in IPL, while Lasith Malinga has most wickets in IPL with 143 wickets.
12. MI lost their fifth wicket at the score of 40. This is their lowest score of losing five wickets in IPL.
13. Rajat Bhatia becomes the third bowler after Shaun Pollock and Dale Steyn to concede 10 or fewer runs after bowling four overs in an IPL match at Wankhede.
(Abhishek Kumar is a cricket devotee currently staffing with Criclife.com. He can be followed on Twitter @abhishekkr2593 and on Facebook at abhicricket.kumar)
