Kolkata: Rajasthan Royals (RR) opener Yashasvi Jaiswal broke the record for the fastest half-century in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL). He reached the landmark off just 13 balls against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens Stadium on Thursday. The previous IPL record was jointly held by KL Rahul and Pat Cummins who had scored fifty off 14 deliveries. The left-handed batter came back only after finishing the match and scored the winning runs for his team to remain unbeaten on 98 off 47 balls, a knock which was studded with 12 fours and five sixes.
Jaiswal was simply sensational right from the outset. KKR captain Nitish Rana, in what seemed like an experiment, came on to bowl the first over of the innings and was taken to the cleaners by the 21-year-old youngster who scored 26 runs. 6,6,4,4,2,4- this was how Rana was welcomed into the attack by the southpaw. In the second over, even though Jaiswal was involved in a run out of his partner Jos Buttler, he did not let that affect his innings and continued at the same tempo.
His 13-ball half-century did include a boundary off an overthrow where captain KKR skippper Rana was the culprit but other than, it was all his genius alone that powered the Men in Pink to a 9-wicket win with 41 balls remaining. This has been a breakthrough IPL season for Jaiswal already with the left-hander having notched up an IPL hundred already in the season to go with his 98 in this match. He now sits second on the list of highest run-getters this season with 575 runs in 12 matches.