Big bucks Iyer leads Punjab Kings to win over Gujarat Titans in IPL
AHMEDABAD: India batsman Shreyas Iyer led from the front with an unbeaten 97 to set up a 11-run win for Punjab Kings in a big-hitting IPL clash with Gujarat Titans on Tuesday. Iyer’s 42-ball knock steered the team to 243-5 after being invited to bat first at the world’s biggest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad. Gujarat finished on 232-5 despite a valiant 41-ball 74 by opener Sai Sudharsan who set up a blazing start to the run chase, featuring a 84-run second wicket stand with England’s Jos Buttler (54). Both sides walloped 16 sixes each across the two innings on the fourth day of the cash-rich Indian Premier League T20 tournament. Iyer, who led Kolkata Knight Riders to a title win last year, has already gone some way to justifying his top price tag, after Punjab paid a whopping 3.17 million dollars in the November auction. The top-order batter started with a boundary off Gujarat’s South African import Kagiso Rabada and three balls later smashed a six. He allowed attacking opener Priyansh Arya to take charge as the Indian young left-hander hammered 47 off 23 deliveries before being denied his fifty by Afghanistan spin wizard Rashid Khan. Gujarat’s Sai Kishore joined the bowling charge to strike twice in two balls, including trapping Australia’s Glenn Maxwell lbw for a first-ball duck, but Marcus Stoinis avoided the hat-trick. Maxwell walked back without a review but tracking technology later revealed the ball would have gone over the stumps as a dejected Punjab coach Ricky Ponting looked upset. Iyer stood strong as he took on the attack with sixes and fours and found support from Australian hard-hitter Stoinis, who smashed a 15-ball 20 before becoming Kishore’s third wicket. Iyer reached his fifty in 27 balls and kept up the