Photo credit: BCCI/IPLT20.com

The VIVO Indian Premier League is well and truly off to a riveting start in it’s 11^th instalment with some beautiful matches played out already. As we build up to our next match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Friday, we take a look back at some of the numbers from our first game this season against the Delhi Daredevils.

Mujeeb spins a dream

Just 17 years and 11 days on the day of the match, Afghanistan’s Mujeeb Ur Rahman became the youngest player ever to play in the history of the IPL – breaking the record of RCB’s Sarfaraz Khan (17 years and 177 days). Subsequently, Mujeeb also became the youngest player to pick up a wicket in this league, after he trapped Colin Munro, plumb in front. With two wickets to his name and a run-out inflicted through a direct hit, Mujeeb played out a dream debut at home, under the captaincy of his role model, Ravichandran Ashwin.

Ash-Winning mentality

Speaking of Ravichandran Ashwin and his captaincy, he would be delighted with the dominant win on his debut as a captain on the big stage, and also as a KXIP player. With short-burst spells to his bowlers and some bold bowling and fielding changes, Ashwin truly led from the front. He even had impressive figures of 4-0-1-23 at a meagre economy rate of 5.75 and conceded 0 boundaries. With this performance, where he even showcased us the leg-break he has been working on, Ashwin became the most economical bowler against DD (among bowlers to have played at least 10 matches against them).

Quite like the look of this leggie that #KingsXI have found. Turn and bounce and bowls a decent off break too! @ashwinravi99

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 8, 2018

The half-centurions from Karnataka

One of the highlights of this season’s KXIP squad is the depth in Indian talent, and the batting trio of Lokesh Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Karun Nair from Karnataka gave a short promo of things to come. While Agarwal could not get a telling score, the other two did not hold back as they scored a half century each.

KL Rahul nonchalantly scored the fastest ever IPL half century, and also became the first player to get one within the first three overs of a match.

With a terrifying strike rate of 318.75, Rahul also became the joint third-fastest player to score a half century in all T20s and scored 94.12 percent of his runs through boundaries.

Karun Nair on the other hand played an equally important innings in the middle order, scoring 64 percent of his 50 (33) through boundaries. This was also his second consecutive fifty against this opposition, and his second fifty while batting at No. 4 in the second innings.

Will more records tumble in the away game against RCB? Only time will tell, but with the crop of players at KXIP, kuch bhi mumkin hai!