For most of their batting effort, Rajasthan Royals looked like staring at a certain defeat in IPL 2022, only for their designated power-hitter Riyan Parag and the team’s multi-resourced bowling unit to save the day for them against the Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 26.
The inaugural season champions won by a healthy margin of 29 runs despite having set up a score of only 144/8, which they also reached thanks mainly to a fantastic innings from Parag. The 20-year-old repaid the trust shown in him by the team management, who have backed him through all the failures and criticism from outside.
The batter came up with an incredible counter-attacking knock of 56 off 31 balls, including three fours and four sixes. Walking into bat at No.6 with RR reeling at 68/4, which later became 110/7, Parag struck one of the toughest half-centuries of this IPL to take his team to a more competitive score.
Without Parag’s effort, the Royals would’ve been done in the first half itself, as the next highest individual score for the innings was 27 off 21 from skipper Sanju Samson. The team kept losing wickets at regular intervals, perhaps paying the price for trying to overachieve at the crease on what was a challenging, spongy surface in Pune.
The ball bounced uncomfortably for the batters throughout the game, which was a factor enjoyed by bowlers, including spinners, from both sides. In the first-innings, Josh Hazlewood (2/19), Wanindu Hasaranga (2/23) and Mohammed Siraj (2/30) used it to their advantage in keeping RR batters bar Parag at bay.
The surface kept making it tough for the batters, with no dew falling to provide them some respite in the second half, where RR’s pacers and spinners kept piling on the pressure for the Bangalore batting unit and eventually triggered their downfall.
The pace duo of Prasidh Krishna (2/23) and Kuldeep Sen (4/20) was on fire throughout their spells. The youngsters got the three big fish out in the RCB batting line-up. While Prasidh bounced out Virat Kohli (9), whose woeful form with the bat continued, Sen got rid of Faf du Plessis (23) and Glenn Maxwell (0). Getting the three big figures in the opposition line-up out for a cost of just 34 runs was a deal that RR would’ve given anything for.
The exploits from their quicks allowed their two quality spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal a greater safety net to operate with and eat into the RCB batting. The latter bowled a miserly spell of 0 for 20 to take game away from the opposition, while the former out-classed the RCB middle-order in one of his better spells for the season, taking three for 17 off his four overs.
With Kohli, Du Plessis and Maxwell falling very early into the chase, RCB’s final hopes rested on the shoulders of in-form Shahbaz Ahmed and Dinesh Karthik in the middle. But a horrible mix-up that saw DK getting run-out going for a hopeless single run ended any realistic chance the three-time finalists had. Eventually, in a sorry-looking scorecard, Faf with 23 proved to be the innings’ highest run-getter.
A win took RR to the top of the table with six victories out of eight games. A defeat meant RCB now languished at fifth spot with just four wins from their nine matches.
Brief scores
Rajasthan Royals 144/8 in 20 overs (Parag 56; Hazlewood 2/19, Hasaranga 2/23) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 115/10 in 19.3 overs (Du Plessis 23; Sen 4/20, Ashwin 3/17) by 29 runs
