IPL 2021: Sanju Samson shatters records with century despite RR's heart-breaking defeat to PBKS

Sanju Samson plays for Kerala in the domestic circuit and has been playing for Rajasthan Royals since 2018. He is RR's skipper for the season. RR is a former champion, having won the Indian Premier Lague in 2008, while Punjab Kings is yet to win the same.

In what turned out to be a super thriller, Rajasthan Royals suffered a heart-breaking four-run loss to Punjab Kings in Match 4 of the 2021 Indian Premier League at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday. Despite a brilliant century from RR skipper Sanju Samson, it could not get the job done. Nevertheless, it did shatter some records.

Sanju Samson scripts specials
Samson entered a special list even before the match got underway. He became the third IPL player to have played the most games before captaining for the first time. Samson did so after playing 107 games, while the record for the same is held by Kieron Pollard (137). With his centurion knock of 119, he also registered the second-best IPL on a losing note, while the top one happens to be Rishabh Pant (128*). It is also the third-highest individual score batting second in IPL, with the best being an unbeaten 120 by Paul Valthaty.

Samson has also scored the joint-most centuries in the IPL along with AB de Villiers (3), while the record lies with Chris Gayle (6). He also scored his 2,00th run for RR, thus become the third for the side after Ajinkya Rahane (2,810) and Shane Watson (2,372), while he is also the youngest to score three IPL tons. It was the first century by a skipper on his IPL debut.

Chris Gayle hits yet another landmark
Gayle could manage 40 tonight, while it included a couple of sixes. As a result, he has hit 350 sixes in the IPL, thus becoming the first batsman to reach the landmark.

Deepak Hooda scripts some with the bat
Hooda was one of the stars for PBKs tonight, playing a brilliant innings of 64. Meanwhile, he hit the joint-fastest half-century against RR, in just 20 deliveries, along with Virender Sehwag and Hardik Pandya. The record lies with David Miller (19). Furthermore, it was also the second-fastest 50 by an uncapped Indian in the tournament after Ishan Kishan (17).

PBKS nails it in middle-overs
The PBKS batsmen ripped apart the RR bowling and scored 115 runs between overs 7-15. It is the best so far this season by any team.

Captains' night out
In another interesting observation, this happened to be the second-best Twenty20 match, with the captains scoring the most runs (210). The best happens to be 225, between Lions and Warriors in Johannesburg in 2019.

Match summary
Inviting PBKs to bat first, Rahul slammed 91, aided by Chris Gayle and Deepak Hooda, as it posted a challenging total of 221/6. In reply, Samson scored a brilliant 119 but in vain and fell short by just four runs.
Brief scores: PBKS 221/6 (Rahul- 91, Gayle- 40, Hooda- 64; Sakariya- 3/31) beat RR 217/7 (Samson- 119; Arshdeep- 3/35) by four runs.