On this day: Ajinkya Rahane scored maiden IPL century vs RCB in Bengaluru

Ajinkya Rahane scored maiden IPL century: Royals’ opening batsman scored a magnificent century away from home in IPL 2012.

On this day in 2012, the then Rajasthan Royals opening batsman Ajinkya Rahane had registered his maiden century in the Indian Premier League during the 18th match of the fifth season against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Opening the batting with captain Rahul Dravid, Rahane targeted RCB seamer Sreenath Aravind as he hit him for four fours in his first two overs. Although unconvincingly, Rahane giving the charge to Zaheer Khan saw him hitting his first six of the innings.

With Rajasthan not hitting a boundary for five overs after the powerplay in addition to losing Dravid (25), Rahane danced down the track to hit a massive six off RCB spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

Royal Challengers captain Daniel Vettori’s ploy of bringing back Aravind into the attack proved suicidal for his team as Rahane hit six consecutive fours off the left-arm bowler including completing his half-century.

With Owais Shah attacking the bowlers from the other end, Rahane didn’t step back as he hit sixes of R Vinay Kumar and Muralitharan in the 17th and 18th over respectively.

Batting on 93* at the start of the last over, Rahane hit two fours off Vinay Kumar to complete his maiden T20 century. Rahane’s 60-ball 103* which included 12 fours and five sixes propelled Royals to score a match-winning 195/2 in 20 overs.

Royals seamer Siddarth Trivedi registering bowling figures of 4-0-25-4 played a vital role in dismissing the hosts for 136 in 19.5 overs as the visitors won the match by 59 runs.

Rahane, who was traded to Delhi Capitals before IPL 2020 auctions, scored 2,810 runs at an average of 34.27 and a strike rate of 122.65 in the 101 IPL matches that he played for RR. It was only in the last IPL that Rahane had scored his second IPL century against Delhi Capitals.

Ajinkya Rahane scored maiden IPL century

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