The Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered the same feat as the team they would be meeting in their final league match - Delhi Capitals, tumbling down under pressure and giving an easy chase to the opponent. Today Sunrisers bossed the entire game as Virat Kohli’s men kept on losing wickets to finally score 120 runs at the end of their 20 overs. The Sunrisers chased it down with much ease even after foreign stars like David Warner and Kane Williamson failed. The Orange brigade won the match by 5 wickets.
Sandeep Sharma and Jason Holder did exceedingly well for the Sunrisers Hyderabad with the new ball, while Rashid Khan and Shahbaz Nadeem were perfect with their spin as well. Nobody got going from the Bangalore batting line up apart from Joshua Philippe and AB de Villiers; who squandered away starts crumbling under tremendous pressure of dot balls.
On this note, let us look at the Hits and Flops of the game
The wicket was sticky and Sandeep Sharma with his cutters and knuckleballs made great use of the pitch at Sharjah. He kept things simple bowling wicket to wicket with the odd one changing direction with the wind or off the pitch with the help of the knuckle. And it was that knuckleball that got him the wickets of Devdutt Padikkal and skipper Virat Kohli.
Sandeep finished with the figure of 2/20 from the four overs. But it was his initial wickets and choking of the runs that built the pressure on the RCB unit.
Since the time Jason Holder has arrived as a replacement for Mitchell Marsh, the dimensions of the team has changed as the Orange army is no longer forced to play a spinning all-rounder in Mohammad Nabi. Holder, who couldn’t finish the game for the team against Kings XI Punjab, made no such mistake in this one as he played till the last run was scored to get to the victory.
Holder along with finishing the game by making 26* off 10 balls with three sixes and one four, also took two wickets while bowling in the death overs and also bowled two exquisite opening overs alongside Sandeep Sharma. He finished with figures of 2/26 in four overs.
Much like Holder, Saha’s entry into the team and him being in good form has also solved their foreign combination problem. Playing in place of the prolific Jonny Bairstow, Saha has done more than just justice to the role. In the last two games, he has scored match-winning 119 runs, with 32 coming in this game.
Saha played the game with much control even after the fall of Warner. He built a partnership of 50 important runs with Manish Pandey before adding 22 with Kane Williamson. In the small chase, it is these short but quick partnerships that make the difference and take the chase in the right direction. Therefore this innings of Saha was an important feature of the match.
By the astronomical standards that he has set for himself, Kohli hasn’t really been able to hit the ball this season. No doubt he has scored the fifties and a 90 as well, but for the most part of this season he has remained off colour and the same was seen today as well. He got out a crucial juncture of the game when the team had already lost the most in-form batsman Devdutt Padikkal. It was required of him to stay there and build a partnership, but Sandeep Sharma got him for the seventh time in IPL history.
Morris was brought into the team as the genuine all-rounder. While he has been able to perform with the ball in most matches, but with the bat he has not been able to do much. On the day where it was required of him to dig deep, he could only manage to score three runs off four balls. Even with the ball he was off-colour today and went for 19 runs in just two overs without picking up a wicket.
Natarajan deserves a special mention because the king of yorkers in IPL 2020 gave away just 11 runs in his four overs, going at an economy even less than three. That too against a team which has hitters of the likes of Kohli, de Villiers, Morris, and Shivam Dube. Therefore he deserves a special mention.
Having lost this game, RCB would now play a virtual quarterfinal against Delhi Capitals, the winner of which would make it to the Playoffs for sure, while the others would wait for other results.
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