The birthday boy misses to be featured in the first match for Punjab Kings in the second leg of IPL 2021. Chris Gayle, the Universe Boss also was kept out of combination in few matches during the first phase.
What Happened?
Chris Gayle who is celebrating his birthday today, unfortunately is not part of Punjab Kings for today’s match against Rajasthan Royals. He did not feature in quite a few matches for the side during first leg of the tournament too. while Gayle is still considered as one of the best performers with the bat in T20 cricket, fact is that the age has started impacting his performances. On the other hand, a franchise can select only four overseas players which is also why Gayle has not made the cut today.
Winning the toss, KL Rahul said, “We’ll bowl first. It’s a no brainer, a fresh wicket with grass on. We don’t know how it will play and I prefer chasing. I was just telling a few people in the dressing room that it just felt like yesterday that we were playing IPL 2020. We have a lot that we’ve learnt from last year. We are all professionals and we have tried hard in the heat to prefer ourselves. Pooran, Markram, Rashid and Allen are our overseas players. Unfortunately Chris Gayle misses out and Aiden has been in good form coming into our setup from Sri Lanka.”
The Royals captain Sanju Samson said, “We are good are chasing and setting totals, so we were happy to do both. We have really great talent and characters in our team. It is a very positive atmosphere. Sangakkara brings in the experience, he knows what to communicate at what point. He just wanted us to relax.”
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Squads
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Evin Lewis, Sanju Samson(w/c), Liam Livingstone, Mahipal Lomror, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya, Kartik Tyagi
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): KL Rahul(w/c), Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Deepak Hooda, Fabian Allen, Adil Rashid, Harpreet Brar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Porel
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