The Royal Challengers Bangalore ended their three-game losing streak, claimin a victory over the Chennai Super Kings, whose hopes of a magical comeback took a massive hit with yet another loss in this season of the Indian Premier League. Youngsters Rajat Patidar and Mahipal Lomror shone with the bat before the brilliant Dinesh Karthik provided for yet another good finish.
The RCB bowlers then did a good job amidst some sensible batting from the Chennai order before Harshal Patel’s magnificent spell turned the game completely in RCB’s favour, wrapping up an important win in the context of the battle to reach the playoffs.
Chennai skipper MS Dhoni won the toss and decided to put the opposition into bat. RCB skipper Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli got off to a good start, with the former finding the boundary on a few occasions before the South African took over.
Du Plessis was magnificent in his brief innings, sending the ball to all parts of the ground. The two ensured that Bangalore got in excess of 50 runs in the powerplay before Faf hoicked a loose Moeen Ali delivery straight to Ravindra Jadeja at deep mid-wicket.
Glenn Maxwell was the victim of yet another freak run-out involving Virat, as some hesitation between the wickets brought about the end of the Australian. Kohli also departed almost immediately after, courtesy of a pearler of a delivery from Ali that castled the maestro.
The early dismissals put the responsibility of the innings on two young shoulders in the form of Rajat Patidar and Mahipal Lomror. Although Patidar did not get too many runs, he and Lomror set up the innings for a ferocious finish. Karthik joined Lomror in the middle following Patidar’s dismissal.
Lomror scored a tremendous 27-ball 41 under pressure before Maheesh Theekshana got three wickets in his final over. Nevertheless, Karthik once again brought his experience to the fore, scoring 16 runs in the final five balls to take his side to a competitive total.
With 174 to win in 20 overs, the Chennai openers started off quite well, as Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway got off to a cautious start but picked up at the end of the powerplay to reach 54 in six overs. Gaikwad, however, was dismissed by Shahbaz Ahmed immediately after the powerplay while Maxwell scalped Robin Uthappa.
Conway carried on as the support dwindled from the opposite end, with Ambati Rayudu getting cleaned up by Maxwell. Ali and Conway were seemingly taking the game away from the RCB. Conway reached another brilliant half-century before his dismissal caused the entire Chennai innings to disintegrate. Ravindra Jadeja and Ali soon headed back to the pavilion before MS Dhoni was tasked with getting 40 off the last two overs.
However, the ask was to prove too much for the great man, as Harshal Patel and Josh Hazlewood bowled a world-class spell at the death. Nonetheless, with 31 needed for the CSK off the last over and tail-enders facing, Patel conceded 17, a slight negative from an RCB perspective, who are struggling from a net run rate perspective. Notwithstanding, the men from Bangalore will be pleased with the performance and will be hoping to keep it going.
Brief scores
Royal Challengers Bangalore 173 for 8 (Lomror 42, du Plessis 38, Kolhi 30, Theekshana 3-27) beat Chennai Super Kings 160 for 8 (Conway 56, Moeen 34, Harshal 3-35) by 13 runs
