Watch: Trent Boult cleans up KL Rahul for a golden duck with a ‘jaffa’

Chasing a target of 166 in an IPL match, you always want to get off to a solid start. But Lucknow Super Giants’ hopes of doing that against Rajasthan Royals on Sunday were dashed early on by pacer Trent Boult who took two wickets on the first two legal deliveries of the first over.

The first one to fall was LSG skipper KL Rahul who got out for a golden duck on the very first ball of the innings. Bowling round the wicket, left-arm pacer Boult produced a peach of a delivery that jagged back in sharply after pitching and went through Rahul’s bat-pad gap to destroy the stumps.

Rahul’s reaction to the delivery summed up the quality of the ball. “I didn’t see it, if I did I could have done something about it. Have to give it to him. Was a good ball,” Rahul said at the post-match presentation ceremony. With this, Rahul became the third player in the history of IPL to twice get out on the first ball of a team’s innings in a season.

The New Zealand fast bowler Boult didn’t stop there. He bowled a wide after dismissing Rahul and on the second legal delivery of the innings got Krishnappa Gowtham out leg before.

Earlier, a quick-fire 59 off 36 from Shimron Hetmyer helped Rajasthan post 165/6 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. RR were reeling at 67/4 from 9.5 overs when R Ashwin joined Hetmyer in the middle. The duo put together 68 runs to steady the innings.

In the 19th over and with 10 balls to spare, Ashwin was withdrawn by RR ‘retired out’ to help the team to score quick runs at the end. Thus, Ashwin became the first player in IPL history to be declared “retired out”.

In reply, rocked by Boult’s bowling and Yuzvendra Chahal’s four-wicket haul, LSG could only manage 162/8, losing the match by three runs.

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