Royal Challengers Bangalore young opener Devdutt Padikkal slammed his maiden century in the Indian Premier League on Thursday to power his team to a comprehensive 10-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals in Mumbai.
Young Padikkal played aggressively in the 178-run chase to put pressure on Rajasthan Royals bowlers and completed his ton in just 51 balls to score the fastest century by an uncapped player in IPL history.
Padikkal 101*-run knock was laced with 11 fours and six magnificent sixes as he also became only the third uncapped player in IPL to slam a century. Manish Pandey was the first uncapped player to achieve the milestone in 2009 while playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore. While Paul Valthaty did it in 2011 for Punjab Kings (then Kings XI Punjab)
The 20-year-old had a tough start to the season after recovering from COVID-19 as he scored 25 and 11 in his first two innings of the season. But the innings on Thursday showcased his talent as he was in full control throughout the chase.
Padikkal shared a 181-run stand alongside skipper Virat Kohli for the opening wicket to take his team to the victory in just 16.3 overs. The magnificent duo shared the highest partnership for the first cricket in Royal Challengers Bangalore history. Kohli also scored fluent 72 runs off 47 balls as he was seen motivating Padikkal throughout the chase.
In the last season, Padikkal was the leading run-scorer for RCB with 473 runs in 15 matches as the team qualified for the play-offs.
RCB are the only unbeaten side in IPL 2021 so far and are on a four-match winning streak as the leaders of the points table.
After the match, skipper Kohli hailed his opening partner for the brilliant century and was happy that he puts the accelerating debate about his batting put to rest.
“It was an outstanding innings. He batted really well for his first season last time. There was a lot of talk about him not accelerating after getting to 30s. He’s put all that to rest. It was a good pitch to bat on, to be honest, and him being tall meant that bowlers struggled with their lengths,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation.