IPL 2021 | RCB vs RR: Hits and Flops as Devdutt Padikkal special seals it for Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore continued their dream run in the Indian Premier League 2021 as they gathered their fourth win in a row. The Red and Gold hardly broke sweat as they flattened Rajasthan Royals on a batting-friendly Wankhede wicket, chasing down 177 in just 16.3 overs with 10 wickets to spare.  This was the highest run chased by RCB without losing a wicket. 

The victory had many heroes for RCB and a lot more villains for Rajasthan Royals as well. Let’s have look at them all in detail through Hits and Flops. 

Hits 

Devdutt Padikkal

The Karnataka opener was the biggest hit of the game, cracking up his first-ever IPL hundred. Devdutt’s 101 unbeaten came off just 52 balls. His approach to the innings set the tempo for the RCB chase and they managed to reach the mark without batting any sweat. At a time when Kohli was struggling to mind timing, Padikkal looked seamless in his approach. This allowed Kohli to get back into touch and play the big shots himself. With the pair in tremendous form, at one point in time, he had to be given strike by skipper Kohli so that he could complete his hundred. 

But that was way after Padikkal, with his stroke play had dashed any hopes what so ever that Rajasthan might have had of making a comeback in the game. With 11 fours and four sixes, the 20-year-old left-hander bulldozed his way past the hundred and into history books by becoming the second youngest centurion for the RCB, only behind Manish Pandey. 

Virat Kohli

Before coming into this game, the form was not with the RCB skipper. In the past three games, he had scored two 33s and a five. In this one too, he struggled at the beginning, till he was 26 from 24 balls. 

But once he started timing the ball, there was no stopping the master. When he was at 26, Padikkal was at 80, but by the end of the innings, the Indian run-machine had reached 72, while also making sure that Padiakkal had enough deliveries being fed to him to get to his maiden IPL ton.  

On his way to his first IPL fifty this season, Kohli also became the first player in the history of the league to reach the milestone of 6000 runs, leaping ahead of Suresh Raina, who is second on the list with 5448 runs. The stroke play of the chase master was phenomenal with six fours and three sixes and if this is the sign of things to come, then his opponents need to be scared. 

Mohammed Siraj

The Hyderabad bowler finally had the chance to shine in a bowling lineup that was overtly dominated by Harshal Patel and Kyle Jamieson. Firstly by keeping the line tight and forcing batsmen to make mistakes, Siraj got into the groove and then by getting out Jos Buttler and David Miller in back to back overs, he broke the back of the Rajasthan innings. 

Before getting thrashed for 12 runs in the last over, Siraj had the figure of 2-15 from his three overs, and ended up with 3-27, his best in the tournament this year. 

Flops

Sanju Samson

If he doesn’t get a start it is understandable. If he loses out of partners then id forced to play a rash shot to keep the scoreboard moving, that is still believable. But even after getting good support from Shivam Dube at the other end, how Samson, the skipper of the Royals, threw his wicket away was flabbergasting, to say the least. After having done the initial hard work and reached 21 off 18 balls, he couldn’t manage to hold on to his aggression and channelise it better, getting caught by Glenn Maxwell off a Washington Sundar delivery that hardly deserved a wicket. Speaking in the broadcast, Brian Lara sharply criticised the approach and stated that when someone is a captain of the side, that person needs to make sure that the moulds his game according to the needs of the team and not keep getting out trying to manufacture shots in every single game.

Also behind the wickets and as a skipper, he was slow and unable to execute the changes that a skipper needed to do in the face of the emergency that RR faced with the Padikkal onslaught. When scores and scores of edges were flying through the third man region, Samson for some odd reason decided against putting a cover there for his pacers.

Chris Morris

Frustrated, dejected and surprised. These have been the three constant looks of Chris Morris this IPL.  After having bagged the costliest contract this season, it seems that Morris has not been able to reach a consensus with his mind that he deserved this much money, and is always short of something or the other. 

In today’s game too, when he was supposed to play the whole last over by himself to try and get the Royals past the 180 mark, he got out of the very first ball, scoring just 10 runs off seven deliveries. While bowling too, he was wayward with his line and length, expecting fielders to be Supermen on the ground. True that Kohli got away with one of his yorkers, but that doesn’t mean that had the right to bowl, short and wide and if not that, then full on the legs. 

With this win, the RCB has for the first time in the history of IPL have gone on to win their first four games in a season. The Red and Gold next face their toughest challenge so far, Chennai Super Kings in a day game at the Wankhede on April 25. Royals would be back to square one as they would face fellow strugglers in Kolkata Knight Riders on April 24 at the same venue.