AGENCIES
BENGALURU
Two of the game’s modern greats put on an exhibition of batting in a second wicket stand worth 157 as the Royal Challengers Bangalore demolished the Sunrisers Hyderabad by 45 runs in their Indian Premier League match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Tuesday.
Between them, AB de Villiers (82 off 42) and Virat Kohli (75 off 51) smashed 14 fours and 9 sixes as they pounded a Sunrisers bowling unit that simply had no solution to the skill and power that was on display. RCB have surprisingly never won the IPL but have stated their intentions of rectifying that with a resounding win that never looked in doubt.
Sunrisers’ captain David Warner offered a brief glimmer of hope with a belligerent 58 from 24, but when he holed out to deep square leg after failing to keep down a Shane Watson bumper, so ended the away side’s chances of an upset.
Warner won the toss and chose to bowl first, honouring a now conventional policy of choosing to chase in T20 cricket. He would have been delighted with the start, dismissing Chris Gayle for a duck when the big Jamaican failed to move his feet and lost his leg stump via his thigh pad off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. But that only brought de Villiers to the crease who all but won the match with Kohli within 12 overs of brutal batting.
The Proteas’ coach Russell Domingo must be wondering where this hitting was during the T20 World Cup. In front of a Bangalore crowd who have adopted de Villiers as one of their own, the South African test captain returned their love with a torrent of boundaries. His innings came to an end when Eoin Morgan held on to the ball after it returned from the stratosphere.
What will please RCB coach Daniel Vettori, apart from the resounding result, will be the way his side managed to steal singles with impunity while batting, and threw their bodies around while fielding (including Gayle). At this level, results often come down to the smallest margins and the way RCB got the basics right indicates that they are taking this title challenge seriously.
Apart from Warner, the one shining light for the Sunrisers was the performance of 20 year old Mustafizur Rahman. The Bangladeshi seamer, on his IPL debut, managed to secure impressive figures of 2-26 off his 4 overs, at a run rate of 5.8 to the over. His battle with the equally inspiring Sarfaraz Khan promises to be one for the future. The 18 year old batsman scooped and punched his way to 35 not out off 10.
Ashish Reddy, Karn Sharma and Morgan provided some entertainment later on, but the required rate was always beyond them. It’s hard to glean too much from a bowling performance when defending a large total and RCB will face tougher batting units than they encountered tonight.
Parvez Rasool looks a promising spinner for an RCB side who will need their bowlers to complement their batsmen this season, and returned with 1-31. His dismissal of Shikhar Dhawan (8 off 9) derailed the chase before it got going and he varied his pace well throughout.
Watson, the most expensive player at this year’s auction (costing R20.4 million) will be pleased with his all-round performance. His breezy 19 with the bat and 2-30 with the ball, will give him confidence. One match does not make a season and neither side will rest on this result. What can be stated with certainty is that this RCB top order looks the most destructive batting unit in this year’s competition.
