An enthralling opening weekend of Indian Premier League T20 cricket saw all ten sides in action.
The curtain was drawn on a new era of leaders, with Shubman Gill and Ruturaj Gaikwad marking their first games in charge of Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings with wins.
With Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni joining Virat Kohli in the pressure-free spaces of not captaining their sides this year, only Dhoni saw his new successor get the job done on opening weekend.
The new campaign did not get off to the start that Kohli and company would have asked for, with Royal Challengers Bengaluru falling short in Chepauk.
A new colour scheme in the kit and an alteration to the team name and logo will bring renewed hope to RCB, still, with a quick turnaround meaning they play their opening home game as soon as Monday.
Their visitors then, will be the Punjab Kings, who picked up a win over the Delhi Capitals on Saturday courtesy of a well-played Sam Curran knock.
For Sharma, a good batting display was met by cheers from the Mumbai faithful on Sunday. However new skipper Hardik Pandya made a few calls that were not taken too well by the fans as the Titans defeated them by six runs.
The opening weekend could not have gone any better for Gill, though. Defeating his former captain Pandya and kicking off his stint as the tournament’s youngest captain with a win for Gujarat is exactly what the 24-year-old would have wanted.
In other results, Rajasthan Royals beat Lucknow Super Giants by 20 runs while the Kolkata Knight Riders came out four-run victors over the Sunrisers Hyderabad thanks to a spectacular knock by Andre Russell and some late magic from Harshit Rana.
Pictured above: Gujarat Titans
Image source: @gujarat_titans
