IPL 2021: AB de Villiers scores an explosive half-century against KKR

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batsman AB de Villiers hit his 39th half-century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) today while playing against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The explosive batsman reached his half-century in style by hitting the legendary Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh for a six-over deep cover. AB de Villiers, who came to bat in the 12th over, finished the first inning for RCB with 76 runs not-out under his kitty. ABD helped his team cross the 200-run mark at Chepauk Stadium, first for any side in IPL 2021.

After Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat first, RCB lost two quick wickets in the second over, including of its skipper. Devdutt Padikkal and Glenn Maxwell forged an important partnership of 86 runs before the former was sent back to the pavilion by KKR pacer Prasidh Krishna for 25 runs. Meanwhile, Maxwell scored his second fifty of the season as he hit 78 off 49 balls before Pat Cummins sent the all-rounder back to the dug-out. But AB de Villiers had already joined the party by then and scored quick runs with a strike rate of 223.53 to finish at 76 not-out off 34 balls. de Villiers smashed the last ball for a boundary to take RCB to 204/4 in 20 overs. 

The chase is currently on with KKR's opening pair Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill out in the middle. Going with the results of the last few matches at Chepauk, KKR will find it difficult to chase the big score as other teams have failed to chase much lower scores before this game. 

Devdutt Padikkal reaches 500 runs

Earlier, Devdutt Padikkal reached 500 runs in the IPL as he scored 25 runs off 28 balls.  Padikkal completed 500 IPL runs from 17 matches and averages 29.94 in the IPL so far. Padikkal has a strike rate of 121.19. The Karnataka batsman scored a whopping 473 from 15 games in last year's IPL, which was also his debut season in the cash-rich league. In the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League, Padikkal scored five half-centuries and had a highest individual score of 74 runs.

(Image Credit: IPL/Twitter)