“Remember the name”: Ruturaj Gaikwad’s maiden IPL century overawes Virender Sehwag

Ruturaj Gaikwad’s maiden IPL century: The opening batter from Chennai Super Kings played a blinder of an innings tonight.

During the 47th match of the ongoing 14th season of the Indian Premier League between Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings in Abu Dhabi, Chennai Super Kings opening batter Ruturaj Gaikwad has emerged as a source of amazement for one and all after scoring his maiden IPL century.

Been practicing consistency at Super Kings since his initials IPL failures, Gaikwad finally managed to reach the three-figure mark for the first time in his 53-match T20 career.

An archetype classy batter who relies primarily on proper cricketing shots, Gaikwad stuck to his strength at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium tonight. Having scored 20 runs off 19 balls in the poweplay, the right-hand batsman scored 81 off the next 41 deliveries that he faced.

While batters tend to experience a decrease of strike rate after the fielding restrictions open up, Gaikwad went through a different trajectory to start playing the big shots in the middle overs. It was on the fourth delivery of the 14th over when Gaikwad ran a single off Rajasthan Royals debutant Glenn Phillips to complete his half-century.

Despite Chennai losing wickets at regular intervals, 24-year old Gaikwad continued to accumulate boundaries to follow consecutive sixes off Rahul Tewatia in the 15th over with two fours and a six off Akash Singh in the 16th.

Needing to score five runs off the last two deliveries to achieve the milestone, Gaikwad emulated his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to hit a mammoth last-ball six to score 101* (40) with the help of nine fours and five sixes.

Ruturaj Gaikwad’s maiden IPL century overawes Virender Sehwag

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