At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on April 15, Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Delhi Capitals by 23 runs thanks to a clinical performance from their powerplay bowling unit. This victory marked a return to winning ways for Royal Challengers Bangalore. The Royal Challengers Bangalore were held to 174/6 thanks to a brilliant spin bowling effort from the Capitals, but they just didn’t show up with the bat. This was Virat Kohli’s 47th half-century in the Indian Premier League. A couple of other cameos were scored in the 20s. The DC top-order capitulated in the face of the seamers bowled by RCB, losing three batsmen inside the first 14 balls of the chase and their skipper by the conclusion of the powerplay. As a result, the game and those precious first points were rapidly lost.
After a strong beginning, RCB was robbed of their skipper.
DC quickly realized that reducing their speed may be the key to success against this unconventional Chinnaswamy pitch, as the combined results of the three overs of spin in the powerplay yielded only 16 runs in total. However, during the powerplay overs, all three pacers allowed a few of runs to be scored outside their limits. To get things started, Kohli faced off against Anrich Nortje, and Faf du Plessis attacked Mustafizur Rahman. The skipper, who had already hit a six down the ground off of Axar Patel, also opted to take on Marsh, but he heaved one straight to midwicket, where Aman Khan collected a fantastic one-handed catch to his right on the second try. This gave RCB the first huge blow.
Kohli throws off the constraints
DC bowled spin from both ends, which contributed to the additional slowing down of RCB after Kuldeep had just come in after the powerplay had ended. Kohli, who was given a life on 36 when the chinaman bowler missed a difficult return opportunity, escaped the shackles as soon as he saw pace return when he was given a second chance. Before Kohli reached his 47th IPL fifty, Mustafizur was greeted with a four and then blasted for a six over fine-leg. This all took place before Kohli reached his fifty off of just 33 balls. The over was finished off by Lomror with a six of his own, and the RCB’s score at the halfway point improved to an impressive 89/1 as a result of the 19 runs scored in the over.
A comeback is being made by Spinners and Marsh.
Even if Kohli’s dismissal went against the flow of play, DC probably wouldn’t have been upset about it. The former RCB captain, who had navigated through DC’s spin attack very effectively, ultimately lost his wicket when he miscued a full deliveries from Lalit Yadav to deep midwicket not long after he reached his fifty. The bowler took the brunt of the abuse from the batsman batting at number four, Glenn Maxwell, who hit two sixes in the remaining time in the over. But Marsh’s insistent plea for a caught-behind review put an end to Lomror’s fight just as the batter was beginning to free his arms more frequently. Lomror’s fight was put to an end.
The ‘team hat-trick’ starring role for DC’s Kuldeep.
The most fruitful phase of play for the Capitals was when they took three wickets in a row over two overs to deprive the RCB of any momentum going into the death overs. After being pummeled by Maxwell and a promoted Harshal Patel, Axar got lucky when the umpire’s review for a stumping appeal against the latter yielded a caught-behind judgment. Axar’s team eventually won the match. Kuldeep then took the two coveted wickets in successive deliveries, getting Maxwell to top-edge a googly and getting power-hitting specialist Dinesh Karthik to hole out a first-ball lift to deep midwicket. Both of these wickets were taken by Kuldeep. In the 15th over, RCB saw their score fall from 132/3 to 132/6. The only thing that catapulted them to 174 was a costly penultimate over from Mustafizur, but it was eventually sufficient.
RCB scores four runs during the powerplay.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) got off to as good of a start as they could have wished for by taking three wickets in the first two overs of the game. Prithvi Shaw was the Impact sub for DC, but he was taken down by a straight strike of sufficient force from his counterpart for RCB. After the batter had shoved the ball in the covers and taken off for a single, Anuj Rawat made a perfect throw at the non-striker’s end to get Shaw out for a second-ball duck and send him on his way for an out. After four balls, Marsh popped a leading edge off of one that was hit by Wayne Parnell. As the next batsman, Yash Dhull only used his DRS appeal on a clear-cut LBW decision, which allowed DC to fall to 2/3. David Warner’s mini counterattack, which consisted of a hat-trick of boundaries off Siraj, was put to an early stop by RCB rookie Vijaykumar Vyshak, who got the left-hander to miscue a pull off his slower delivery. This put an end to Warner’s onslaught.
Cameo appearances from Pandey fifty, Axar, and Nortje put off the inevitable.
The exciting cameo by Axar lasted for 14 balls, during which he faced off against Wanindu Hasaranga but was ultimately defeated by Vyshak’s knuckle ball. In the 14th over, Manish Pandey turned it on against the legspinner as well with a 4, 6, 4, 2 to march to a fifty off of 37 balls with limited cheers and even less celebrations. However, the Sri Lankan had the last laugh by getting him leg before wicket with the following delivery. Vyshak finished off an impressive start by removing the final batter with a knuckleball in his final over, posting the impressive stat line of 4-0-20-3. As the score stood at 110/8 when Nortje entered the game, he made a cameo score of 23 not out off of just 14 balls, bringing the game to its last over. It may look that DC put up a fight based on the final scorecard; however, this was never the case following the awful failure of their powerplay.
What should I do now?
After a break of four days, Delhi will head back to their home stadium to take on Kolkata Knight Riders on April 20. Prior to that, they will continue their pursuit of the first points of the season. CSK will pay a visit to RCB on Monday (April 17), which will be followed by a fast turnaround for the team.
The brief stats are as follows: Royal Challengers Bangalore scored 174/6 in 20 overs, while Delhi Capitals scored 151/9 in 20 overs. Manish Pandey scored 50 runs for Delhi Capitals, and Vijaykumar Vyshak 3-20 and Mohammed Siraj 2-23, respectively. Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 23 runs.
