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(CMC) – West Indies captain Rovman Powell failed to ease concerns about his form heading into the ICC Men’s Twenty20 International World Cup next month in the Caribbean and the United States, with another low score in the Indian Premier League yesterday.
Leg-spin, the eternal bane of Powell, returned to haunt him after he made only four, coming in to bat at seven for the second-placed Rajasthan Royals with 39 balls remaining, and he gave a return catch to Rahul Chahar in a five-wicket defeat against the Punjab Kings at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium.
Royals were restricted to 144 for nine after they decided to bat, and Kings replied with 145 for five, led by an undefeated 63 off 41 balls in a Player-of-the-Match performance from England left-handed all-rounder and their captain, Sam Curran, to send their opponents crashing to their fourth defeat in a row.
Powell, 30, has made only 81 runs from five innings in seven matches in the lucrative T20 tournament, with his highest score being 27 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 1 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.
It is hardly evidence to inspire confidence in the batting of Powell with co-hosts the West Indies aiming to add to their two previous T20 World Cup titles on home soil, and it is likely to cause some concern to head-coach Daren Sammy heading into the global showpiece.
There is also likely to be concern about left-hander Shimron Hetmyer, whose place in the West Indies side for the World Cup has been heavily questioned, after he did not play in this latest Royals match and has only gathered 83 from seven innings in 10 matches.
With one more round-robin match and the knockout stage of the tournament remaining, the T20 World Cup co-hosts will be hoping that Powell and Hetmyer can fire and ease the worries about their form.
The Royals made a fight of it when they restricted the Kings to 36 for three after pacer Avesh Khan struck twice in the Power Play in the chase.
Kings stumbled to 48 for four when England opener Jonny Bairstow was caught at long-on for 14 off leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal in the eighth over, but Curran and Jitesh Sharma turned the tide with a stand of 63 for the fifth wicket.
Chahal made the breakthrough when he got Sharma caught at long-on for 22, and the Kings required 34 from the last 26 balls of the match, an equation that was never going to be too difficult.
Earlier, Curran ended with two for 24 from three overs and was one of three Kins bowlers that got two wickets after he set the Royals back early with the scalp of left-handed opener Yashasvi Jaiswal for four in the first over.
The Royals limped to 38 for one at the end of their Power Play, but they never got any sort of consistent momentum against steady, if not troublesome, bowling from the Kings, even with a 50-run, fifth wicket stand between Riyan Parag and India off-spin bowling all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin.
Parag made the top score of 48, and Ashwin supported it with 28.
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