IPL 2017, Match 13, GL vs RPS: CT Player of the match – Andrew Tye

Gujarat Lions have struggled with their bowling since the start of this year’s IPL as they had taken only one wicket in two matches. Today they were meeting the side who were also facing the same problem. Rising Pune Supergiant are one of the weakest sides when it comes to bowling.

Gujarat, however, struck a masterstroke in their team selection. In the previous two matches they played an all Indian bowling attack but today they included Andrew Tye, the knuckleball specialist in their lineup. Andrew Tye was making his debut in the IPL and it was one of the best debuts anyone could have.

He snatched a five-wicket haul on his debut which left the opposition 15-20 runs short and that made it easy for their batters to chase down the target. For this match winning performance of his with the ball, Andrew Tye is CricTracker’s player of the match.

Sent dangerous Tripathi back into the pavilion

Rahul Tripathi was playing in his second IPL game and opened the batting with Rahane. After the departure of Rahane, he took the game to the opposition with the skipper Smith and played some outstanding shots.

In the previous over before Tye took Tripathi out, he hit Praveen Kumar for 25 runs and Pune were destined to get past 200. But Andrew Tye had other ideas, after hitting the deck hard for the first two deliveries Tye bowled the knuckleball and Tripathi could not get under it as he hit it straight to Aaron Finch at mid-off as Tye got his first wicket in the IPL.

Gets rid of pinch hitter Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes was also playing extremely well. After the dismissal of Tripathi Stokes and Smith started to build a partnership and were looking dangerous just when Tye struck his magic again. It was the knuckleball again.

His knuckleball is very well disguised as even Stokes fell for it. Trying up the ante Stokes went for the big one but inside edged one to his stumps. Stokes had to depart for his 25 and RPS were struggling once again this time because of the debutant Andrew Tye.

First player to take the hat-trick on debut in IPL

Andrew Tye would have never thought in his wildest dreams that he would pick up a five-for in his debut game of the IPL let alone picking up a hat trick. His insane bowling skills left RPS 20 odd runs short of the desired target.

For a team whose death overs economy was the highest of all the team to pick up give only 42 runs in the last five overs was a major improvement and the credit for this goes to none other than Andrew Tye. This 30-year-old Australian bowled four overs gave away just 17 runs and took five wickets out of those five the three came in consecutive deliveries.

He took a last over hat trick as he snatched Ankit Sharma (25), Manoj Tiwary (31) and Shardul Thakur (0) on the first three deliveries of his over. Claiming the second hat trick of the day as well as this year’s IPL.

In the hunt for the Purple cap

Andrew Tye is in the hunt for the purple cap right away. Having played just one match he is fourth on the list only two wickets away from Bhuvaneshwar Kumar who leads the list with 7 wickets and has played 2 more matches than him.

This brilliant performance from Tye meant that he will be a firm favorite for the purple cap and might just turn the fortunes for Gujarat Lion.

This magnificent bowling performance has earned Andrew Tye 4.5 stars out of 5 and is our Player of the match for his 5 for 17 against RPS.

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