Impressive Mujeeb restrict Rajasthan to 152/9

Young off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman led an impressive bowling display from Kings XI Punjab to restrict struggling Rajasthan Royals to a modest 152 for nine in an Indian Premier League match here today.

Mujeeb (3/27) struck in the first two deliveries of the 15th over, first removing dangerous -looking Jos Buttler and then Jofra Archer to stand in with a chance of registering a hat-trick.

But it didn't come as he bowled a wide delivery in the next ball.

However, Mujeeb's exploits were enough to keep Rajasthan in check as Kings XI kept on losing wickets at regular intervals from the start after being sent into bat.

Besides Mujeeb, Andrew Tye (2/24), Axar Patel (1/21), skipper Ravichandran Ashwin (1/30) and Ankit Rajpoot (1/37) were the other wicket-takers for Kings XI.

Opening the batting, Buttler scored 51 off 39 balls with the help of seven boundaries to anchor Rajasthan innings but just when it was time for him to accelerate he nicked a Mujeeb delivery to KL Rahul behind the stumps.

To make matters worse for Rajasthan, Mujeeb cleaned up new man Archer with a googly in the next delivery to stand on the verge of a hat-trick.

Mujeeb also accounted for dangerous Ben Stokes (12) who was brilliantly caught by a joint effort from Mayank Aggarwal and Manoj Tiwary at the long-off boundary.

Earlier asked to bat, Rajasthan did not have a great start as they lost opener D'Arcy Short (2) and skipper Ajinkya Rahane (5) early before Buttler and Sanju Samson (28) stitched 49 runs for the third wicket to stabilise the innings.

Towards the end, Shreyas Gopal played a 16-ball 24-run cameo but it was not enough to take Rajasthan to a good total.