Kohli-led RCB registered a 10 run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad on the back of quick-fire half tons by debutant Devdutt Padikkal (56) and AB De Villiers (51) and stellar bowling performances by leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal and tearaway seamer Navdeep Saini.
RCB opener Devdutt Paddikal who made his IPL debut in his team's opener against SRH could not have asked for a better start to his IPL career as he scored a blazing half ton in his maiden match at the premier T20 league and played a pivotal role in RCB's win over SRH.
Paddikal became only the fifth player from RCB to score a half ton on debut, joining the likes of his skipper Virat Kohli Sreevats Goswami (52), AB de Villiers (54*), Chris Gayle (102*) and Yuvraj Singh (52*).
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The supremely talented Paddikal also holds the distinction of scoring half centuries for Karnataka in his First-Class, List A and T20 debut.He followed his penchant for making an impact on debut with a half century in his very first IPL game.
Put into bat first by SRH skipper David Warner, Paddikal opened the batting for RCB with Aaron Finch and helped his side get off to a breezy start scoring a spree of well timed boundaries inside the powerplay. Paddikal was the dominant partner as he notched up 37 runs in the half century opening stand.
The tall left hander was particularly severe on seamer T Natarajan scoring three boundaries of him in one over and did not even spare Sandeep Sharma and Vijay Shankar, tonking them to all corners of the park. After notching up his maiden IPL 50, the aggressive strokemaker was eventually dismissed by Shankar for a breezy 56-run knock in the 11th over of the RCB innings.