JOIN USAfter a string of defeats, Royal Challengers Bangalore tasted victory in its last league match of the Indian Premier League. In the inconsequential contest against the Delhi Daredevils, RCB plucked a 10-run win to end their season with some good cheer at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.
Boosted by the knocks of Virat Kohli (58) and Chris Gayle (48), RCB posted 161/6 in 20 overs. In reply, Daredevils were all out for 151 with Harshal Patel and Pawan Negi picking three wickets each. RCB, thus, finished with a wooden spoon with three wins this season while Daredevils ended in sixth place with 12 points.
Daredevils lost Sanju Samson in the second ball of the innings, but Karun Nair and Shreyas Iyer got the momentum going for Daredevils. However, Nair, who hit a flurry of boundaries during his short stay, departed in the sixth over.
Iyer and Rishabh Pant got Daredevils’ campaign back on track with their third wicket 46-run partnership, but Patel dealt twin blows in the 12th over to peg them back. With a slow ball, he had Iyer holing out to extra cover and scattered the stumps of Marlon Samuels , in the next, with a slow cutter. Once Travis Head removed Corey Anderson and Pat Cummins in the 16th over, and Patel returned to pack off Pant in the next, RCB had stormed into the contest. Although Mohammad Shami did give them a fright with some power hitting, he didn’t stay till the last.
Earlier, Zaheer Khan, probably turning out in the IPL for the last time, bowled miserly during the powerplay overs and got good support from his fellow seamers.
Cummins, who conceded just one boundary in his four overs, then got the breakthrough for the hosts when Vishnu Vinod played him on. It brought Rcaptain Kohli to the middle who with Gayle stitched 66 runs for the second wicket. Kohli’s knock was all about timing, a six over long on came off a forward push and had class stamped all over it.
Gayle, restrained by slow conditions, played patience, but rarely lost out on the opportunity to send the ball flying over the rope. A mistimed shot off Shahbaz Nadeem, however, ended his innings in the 14th over. Kohli, who scored heavily off Amit Mishra, raised his fourth fifty of the season in the 15th over, but just when he seemed to have opened his arms, he fell to Zaheer in the 17th over.
After surviving a tough return catch opportunity, he flicked Zaheer for a towering six, but perished immediately at long on when he couldn’t get the measure of a slower ball. A brief cameo Negi provided them a fighting total, and for once RCB, didn’t flounder.