It won’t be surprising if the opponents of Gujarat Lions approach each game saying ‘Game Maari Che.’ The Suresh Raina outfit has just not been able to execute their plans in the middle and Kings XI came out worthy winners during the match at Rajkot.

Batting first, KXIP scored 188-7 thanks to a classy 65 from Hashim Amla. In reply, Gujarat only managed 162-7 — handing KXIP a 26-run victory.

As Raina said in the post-match conference: “You can’t chase 190 every time. Bowlers have to do something.”

Here’s a look at the interesting moments from the game:

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Nathu Singh strikes

To many, the best Gujarat Lions line-up would include James Faulkner and Andrew Tye. But the Gujarat management seems determined to not let them play together. This time round, they dropped Faulkner and brought back Tye. Praveen Kumar also got a rest and Nathu Singh, who was picked by the Mumbai Indians for a stunning Rs 3.2 crore last season, got a game instead. The second change seemed to work right away. It was great bowling, just back of length and it put Manan Vohra in two minds. In the end, he just managed to edge it to the keeper. The innings didn’t end very well for Singh as he was forced to go off the field due to some issue with the lower back.

Super Amla

After not being picked in the initial draft last year & the flak he got, Amla now has 106 more runs than his closest teammate. His innings on Sunday was another example of just how good proper batsmen can be in the format. He didn’t go back to the reverse sweep or the switch hit, nor did he try to slog his way to some quick runs. Instead, he just made the mental adjustment and went for his shots. His gift of timing is just as lethal in T20 cricket as well. He got to his 50 off 30 balls and looked all set to move into a higher gear when he was dismissed after making 65 off 40 balls. Somewhere, Cheteshwar Pujara might be thinking... this could’ve been me.

Double strike

KXIP were starting to look really dangerous. The Amla-Maxwell parnership was looking really dangerous. They had put on 47 in just 4.3 overs. Even more worrisome was that it seemed like they could attack even more. First, Amla hit one straight back to Shubham Agarwal, the leg-spinner and then a couple of balls later, Ravindra Jadeja sent back Maxwell, who was trying to reverse sweep the ball. The right-hander missed it completely and was dismissed. It slowed the momentum of the innings and saw KXIP make just 47 runs between the 11th and 15th overs.

An early gift

The Gujarat batting has depended on the whirlwind starts given by McCullum but they weren’t going to get one today. Just 6 balls into the innings, the NZ veteran missed a full toss from Sandeep, got hit on the back leg and had to head back to the hut. It was a huge confidence boost for the KXIP bowlers and a blow that the Gujarat line-up just didn’t recover from.

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Maxwell magic

Raina walked in and looked in brilliant from right away. He scored runs all around the wicket and looked set to play a long innings but that’s when Maxwell the fielder came up with a brilliant catch at the boundary line. Raina got hold of a delivery from Axar Patel but Maxwell timed his jump on the boundary line superbly to take the catch and send the Gujarat Lions back. He made it look easy.

The Natarajan over

As Natarajan came in to bowl the 18th over of the innings, Gujarat needed 47 runs off 18 balls. The over before that had seen Gujarat score 14 runs and sometimes such things go wrong at just around this time. But despite his relative inexperience, Natarajan bowled wide, full deliveries to concede just 6 runs in his runs and virtually bowl Gujarat out of the game.