JOIN USIPL 2020: Delight despite defeat for Royal Challengers Bangalore
The Royal Challengers Bangalore’s slide continued for a fourth game in succession as they crashed to a six-wicket defeat against the Delhi Capitals but still made it to the play-offs on Monday.
In a high-stakes encounter where the winner was guaranteed the second place in the league table below champions Mumbai Indians, the Royal Challengers, asked to bat first by DC skipper Shreyas Iyer, struggled to move past third gear for most of their innings. Thanks to Capitals’ superb all-round bowling and their own inability to break the shackles, RCB settled for a below-par 152/7 at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
However, it was still a competitive total nonetheless. To qualify for the play-offs they needed to ensure DC don’t surpass the target inside 17.3 overs. DC, on the other hand, had to score at least 134 to secure their passage into the knockouts. Eventually DC coasted home in 19 overs, the experienced duo of Shikhar Dhawan (54, 41b, 6x4) and Ajinkya Rahane (60, 46b, 5x4, 1x6) starring in the chase with a brilliant second-wicket stand of 88 runs.
Both looked like they were batting on a different wicket as compared to the RCB batsmen. Their strategy was simple, just keep rotating the strike and try picking up a boundary every over without taking much risk. That ploy worked to a nicety as RCB bowlers ended up dishing a boundary ball every over and the duo, oozing class all night, made no mistake with the bad balls. Rahane and Dhawan motored along so smoothly that it looked like they may just knock RCB out of the play-offs. But RCB hauled themselves back through some tight bowling but that was good enough only to secure their ticket into the last-four.
Delhi will now play Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 1 on Nov 5 while RCB will have to wait until Tuesday night to know their opponents in the Eliminator on Nov 6.
RCB have only themselves to blame for the defeat. Talented opener Devdutt Padikkal, who scored a fifth half-century (50, 41b, 5x4) in an impressive debut season, once again got bogged down in the middle overs while Virat Kohli too found it difficult to force the pace. Such were their troubles that RCB managed to just six boundaries in the opening 10 overs, their score a hard-on-the-eye 60/1.
At that stage, Kohli knew someone had to take the risk and being the skipper and senior player, he decided to throw caution to the wind. He cracked Axar Patel for a gorgeous six over long-on but just when it looked like he was cranking up the volume, he perished to a smart piece of bowling from the seasoned R Ashwin.
AB de Villiers walked in with huge pressure to speed up the proceedings and ensure RCB bowlers had something noteworthy to defend with. The South African, in fine form this season, did so, cracking a 21-ball 35 as RCB innings got the much-needed impetus. But even his heroics weren’t enough at the end.