Devdutt Padikkal — the debutant who scored 50 in IPL

Devdutt Padikkal, the youngster from Karnataka, made his IPL debut with a bang. Representing the franchise of Royal Challengers Bangalore, Padikkal scored fifty in his IPL debut for RCB and thus was awarded the title of first Indian in the IPL history to score a fifty on debut in 10 years.

The 19-year old Padikkal earned a spot in RCB’s new opening batsmen squad with Aaron Finch. Hoping to take RCB off to a flying start, Padikkal of the new opening pair did the unthinkable by taking charge early on, while Finch took the back seat.

Born on July 7, 2000, Padikkal represented Karnataka in domestic cricket and made his first-class debut in 2018. He averages 59.09 and 63.60 in List A and T20 cricket, respectively. The Indian Southpaw first made the headlines with his ruthless run-scoring spree in the Karnataka Premier League for Bellary Tuskers. He scored centuries and was immediately rewarded with the Ranji Trophy cap. Since then, he has not looked back and has now made his IPL debut in style.

After RCB’s successful innings, Devdutt initially agreed that it was pretty difficult to bat on in his interview.

“It was pretty difficult to bat on. We have a good total now. Looking forward to defending. It was great to get the half-century out of the way.”

Padikkal was bought for Rs. 20 lakh by the RCB franchise and had recently cleared his fourth semester BBA exams.

Questions were raised when Devdutt was preferred over an experienced Parthiv Patel in the playing XI. But, Padikkal’s grand debut 50 shut all the mouths and proved everything he is capable of and why he is such a highly-rated batsman in the domestic circuit.