It was scorching at the SCA stadium, Rajkot where the Lions took on the Kings. The game was between the teams at the two ends of the table, as GL were the table toppers and KXIP were languishing at the bottom of the table. Raina won the toss and once again chose to bowl first.

Murali Vijay, who walked in for the toss, had made some major changes to the team. Marcus Stoinis opened the innings alongside the new captain. The move gave an aggressive start to KXIP as they flew to 59 in their power play at almost 10 an over. GL bowling came back strongly as they spun a web around the opposition. Shivil Kaushik who was playing his second game got the wickets of the in-form Shaun Marsh and Glenn Maxwell off the consecutive deliveries. Then it was just a matter of building pressure over KXIP which Raina and co. did with disciplined bowling backed by their fielders. Kings managed to reach a total of 154 by the time all their batsmen were back in the hut.

Kings XI bowlers had a herculean task in hand, as the devastating opening pair of Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum walked in. Mohit Sharma hit the timber twice to get the wickets of Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina in the powerplay. The game went on a tail spin in the 7th over when Axar Patel picked the wickets of Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik and Dwayne Bravo in a matter of 4 deliveries to wreak havoc in the GL camp. Patel came back to complete his hat-trick when he got the wicket of Ravindra Jadeja. It was a great spell of spin bowling as he left the hosts reeling at 57/6. From there on Lions tried to put a respectable performance, but they could just reach 131/9 in their quota of 20 overs. Kings XI got their second win of the season and it couldn’t get any bigger than winning it against the table toppers.