Opening alongside Aaron Finch, for a team captained by Indian skipper Virat Kohli, and 20-year-old Devdutt Padikkal embraced the challenge, giving Royal Challengers Bangalore a solid start to their IPL 2020 campaign.
Making his debut in the team’s first match of the season, Padikkal smashed eight boundaries as he scored 56 off 42 balls.
The young Karnataka batter switched gears after the first over, hitting Sandeep Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Natarajan for boundaries with ease. Even as the Aussie limited-overs skipper watched from the other end, Padikkal raced to 34 off 22 balls in the first 5 overs of the innings. Finch, at that point, was on 10 off 10 balls.
Padikkal’s half century came off 36 deliveries as RCB went onto post 163/5 in their 20 overs.
‘It (pitch) was pretty difficult to bat on so we had to take our time initially. It was great to get the half century out of the way. It was the first game so I wanted to make sure I start off well,’ Padikkal said in the mid-innings break.
Paddikal’s stunning debut would not come as a surprise to those who have followed his career in Indian domestic cricket. The Karnataka cricketer was the highest run-scorer in the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy tournaments..
In Karnataka’s winning campaign, the 20-year-old left-hander scored a massive 580 runs in 12 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy games, at a strike rate of 175.75 including an unbeaten century and five 50-plus scores.
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