Cricket World Player of the Week - Ajinkya Rahane

Ajinkya Rahane wins the Cricket World Player of the Week award for his unbeaten half-century for the Rising Pune Supergiants in the Indian Premier League opener against the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium.

Rahane had a relatively easy task after the Supergiants bowlers restricted the powerful Mumbai Indians batting to just 121 for eight in the 20 overs.

The 27-year-old added 78 runs from 58 deliveries for the first wicket with Faf du Plessis and later added another unbeaten stand of 48 runs with Kevin Pietersen to ensure the Supergiants reached the target in 14.4 overs with nine wickets in hand.

In the process, he reached his fifty off 32 deliveries, the first and the only half-century of this edition of the tournament thus far.

Earlier, it was Harbhajan Singh’s blitz of unbeaten 45 runs from 30 deliveries that helped Mumbai Indians post 121.

The second game of the tournament was another one-sided encounter as Kolkata Knight Riders led by a clinical bowling performance from Andre Russell and Brad Hogg dismissed the Delhi Daredevils for just 98 runs.

Russell was instrumental in the powerplay overs as he dismissed Mayank Agarwal, Quinton de Kock and Shreyas Iyer in a quick succession while Hogg controlled the middle overs beautifully with Piyush Chawla.

Things got better for the Kolkata Knight Riders as their openers Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa added 69 runs and they eventually reached the target in 14.1 overs.

That concludes the performances of the week.

© Cricket World 2016