IPL 2021 | RCB vs SRH: Hits & Flops as Sunrisers dent Virat Kohli’s ambition of top-two finish

For whatever the game meant for the Sunrisers Hyderabad towards the end of the horrific season where they could not get one bit of their tactics executions right, the win over the Royal Challengers must have inflicted frustration in the Virat Kohli-led camp while delighting the faces in the Chennai Super Kings.

RCB needed these two points against the Sunrisers to stake claim to a spot among the top two sides of the tournament while the Sunrisers were playing with eyes on players they might be looking to retain for the next few seasons. 

The objective of individual players was fulfilled in a big way as some prominent names of the Sunrisers stood up tall to their promises and defied the RCB a much-needed win that would have enhanced their rankings on the points table.

In the end, it all came down to AB de Villiers’ genius against the reliability of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and in a sign that the day did not belong to the men in red and gold, the star batsman failed to score 12 runs off the last three balls.

Here we’ll analyse the best and the worst performance of the night.

Hits

Harshal Patel

Harshal Patel has been there in the Indian Premier League since the time his current RCB captain Virat Kohli was establishing himself as an Indian Test batsman and the ongoing edition is his most fruitful season.

His bowling was always rich with subtle variations but the inconsistency with too many variations and absence of X-factor or a surprise weapon always marred his journey. He has been expensive with the ball in this season as well but plenty of wickets which was lacking in previous seasons masked his promise and rise.

He has come with his bag full of tricks this season and announced his arrival in a grand manner in the opening clash of the season against the Mumbai Indians and has not looked back since this game against the Sunrisers.

First, he got the better of Kane Williamson with a beauty of off-cutter that dipped in the short of length area and the SRH captain could not reach the pitch of the ball. He tried to carve the ball over offside in hope rather than with conviction to only find his stumps shattered. Williamson’s wicket perfectly highlighted his perfection with the length while bowling cutters that has paved the way for his enormous success. 

He came back in the end phase of the game to dismiss Wriddhiman Saha and Jason Holder to keep on churning wickets for fun while batsmen are looking for runs at a rapid rate.

He has gone on to become the go-to man for Virat Kohli in the tournament with 29 wickets in the season and stands just three wickets away from an all-time high record of 32 set by Dwayne Bravo.

For a team that have over the years attracted the best headlines for its star-studded batsman and the worst set of headlines due to ineffective and inaccurate bowlers, the rise and rise of RCB this season can also be attributed to Harshal’s commanding success with the ball.

Jason Holder

Who would you place your money on when 18 runs are required of the last 12 balls of the game with one of the two batsmen at the crease is Ab de Villiers? You are likely to favour the batting side and when you will find that the other batsman is a proper hitter of the ball, too, most certainly you will bet on the batting side.

It was that much stacked against Jason Holder when he was coming into the bowl the 19th over of the game. Also, that Kane Williamson preferred him over Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has been a know death bowler, also speaks of where the former West Indies skipper stands among the Sunrisers players.

On the very first ball, he foxed Shahbaz Ahmed with a perfect off-cutter that he could not place in the gap while hitting in the air but Bhuvneshwar spilt the chance. 

He launched a relentless attack of slower balls and did not allow the left-hander any pace to work with and ultimately got the better of him with the version of a short slower ball. He denied Shahbaz the opportunity to even rotate the strike freely and de Villiers could face just one ball of his over and he beat him there comprehensively.

Holder’s figure will read 4-0-27-1 but his control in the penultimate over stretched the game to the last over and the last ball and allowed Bhuvneshwar Kumar breathing space even by conceding a big six to the South African.

Glenn Maxwell

Generally, a lot of players who fail to excel in the IPL with the RCB flourish on the other side but Glenn Maxwell is a case in reverse. In the last two editions he played in 2018 and 2020 he could not muster even 200 runs in the season before he was released by the then Kings XI Punjab.

The RCB needed another explosive batsman in the middle order to take some of the burdens off de Villiers’ shoulders and the Australian has fit in the role nicely with swashbuckling innings.

On the night against the Sunrisers, the RCB were struggling in the middle phase of the game after the early fall of Virat Kohli, KS Bharat and Daniel Christian. 

He was eager and fearless to up the ante against Rashid Khan in a clear sign of having been allotted a particular role in the middle order. His exploits against the champion spinner came off and the RCB were up and running away from the Sunrisers in the chase of 142 runs.

On a pitch where all struggled to time the ball and could barely manage boundaries, Maxwell was hitting boundaries at will before getting dismissed by run out and derailing RCB’s chasing efforts.

Flops

Rashid Khan

Rashid has been one of the best bowlers to have played in the 14-year long history of the IPL and not often does he leaks runs at an economy rate in excess of nine runs per over like in the game against the RCB.

Batsmen have struggled in both reading his variations off his hand and trying to get to the pitch of his deliveries due to his lengths and pace of bowling.

However, on the night against the RCB, he offered deliveries in the arc of Maxwell, who doesn’t bat keeping the reputation of the bowler in his mind and instead reacts to the ball. He took him on on the very first ball he faced and deposited him over the fence. 

That boundary would have come across as an anomaly of the leg spinner would have corrected his length. Instead, he offered him two full-pitched deliveries in the next over and Maxwell was up to the task to punish him.

Having hit mercilessly over the top by Maxwell, Rashid overcorrected his length and offered long hops to Devdutt Padikkal but was lucky to get away with those as the left-hander was not at his fluent best.

In the game where the Sunrisers had only 141 runs to defend, Williamson would have hoped to get better returns out of Rashid’s fingers. Instead, he had to take him off the attack in the middle phase of the game and only a run out of Maxwell and immaculate bowling by Jason Holder, in the end, saved the night and some pride for the Sunrisers.

Devdutt Padikkal

Things could not have been any wrong for Devdutt Padikkal as he has produced regular dominating performances with the bat. However, his returns have started to flounder, his flamboyance has started to be contained and his stroke playing abilities have started to be limited in the ongoing edition of the IPL.

On the night against the Sunrisers and in many games before as well, Padikkal has batted without any momentum and has created enormous pressure for the batsman at the other end. His patience at the crease has not helped him in scoring big runs either and the young left-hander needs to ask himself what sort of batsman he wants to become going forward. 

If the idea of taking your time early on and accelerating, in the end, would be a better one, his skipper Virat Kohli would not have walked away from it and started throwing the kitchen sink at deliveries.

He was so off the mark that even a completely off-colour Rashid Khan was bamboozling him for fun while also offering him scoring opportunities, which he could not capitalise on to put pressure on the bowler. He was defeated in the battle of the worst of the day against Rashid Khan and he would like to forget the innings against the Sunrisers quickly.

The Royal Challengers missed a golden opportunity to get into the top side on the points table with a win over the Sunrisers. They however have to win their next game and hope that the Chennai Super Kings lose their next one as well to make it three losses in a row to get to the second point on the table.

The Sunrisers, on the other hand, would be happy to see the likes of Abhishek Sharma, Umar Mallik coming with their best on the big stage. Their journey in the IPL 2021 was over a long time back and all their good memories now will only set up a good near future for the franchise that had gone on to win the title in the 2016 edition.