BCCI president and former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly heaped praise on Royal Challengers Bangalore opening batsman Devdutt Padikkal after the latter’s impressive debut innings of 56. Ganguly, himself a left-hand opening batsman in his playing days, took to Twitter to laud the fellow southpaw opener's innings. After losing the toss, Virat Kohli's side opened their innings with Padikkal and Australian limited overs’ skipper Aaron Finch. The two put on a 90-run stand which set the tone for the Royal Challengers as they finished at a competitive total of 163, on a tricky wicket.
SRH in reply fell short of the total by 10-runs after a dramatic batting collapse. The 20-year-old Padikkal was bought by RCB for his base price of Rs 20 Lakhs in the 2019 IPL auctions. Devdutt Padikkal who plays for Karnataka in domestic cricket was the highest run-scorer in 2019/20 edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He accumulated 609 runs at an average of 67.66 in the former while finished with 580 runs (12 innings) in the latter. Padikkal made his first-class debut in 2018 and List A debut in the following year.RCB will take on Kings XI Punjab in their next match on September 24.
