Picture Credit: IPL
Dinesh Karthik was in incredible form in the batting innings of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in their first match of the season against Punjab Kings. While it is true that DK was given quite the most perfect platform for a finish, courtesy of a great start provided by Faf du Plessis (88 from 57) and Virat Kohli (41* from 29), Karthik too played his role to perfection and finished with an unbeaten 32 runs off 14 deliveries.
Such exquisite was his shot-making this evening that his 32 came with the help of 3 fours and 3 sixes as the stumper had a scarcely believable strike rate of 228.57. As a result, RCB finished their innings at 205/2, a total any team would fancy defending in any conditions in T20 cricket.
Here is a compilation of some of the shots from his innings:
However, as it turned out DK's innings ended up on a losing side. Punjab Kings chased down the total with an over to spare thanks to valuable contributions from Shikhar Dhawan (43 from 29), Bhanuka Rajapaksa (43 from 22) and Mayank Agarwal (32 from 24). However, the finishing touch and probably the decisive innings came from Odean Smith who scored 25 runs from just 8 balls and came back only after the finishing the match for his side along with Shahrukh Khan.