Brief Scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 194/2 (AB de Villiers 73*, Aaron Finch 47, Prasidh Krishna 1/42)
beat
Kolkata Knight Riders 112/9 (Shubman Gill 34, Andre Russell 16; Chris Morris 2/17) by 82 runs.
Sharjah's featherbed unveiled its alter ego tonight as Royal Challengers Bangalore made light work of Kolkata Knight Riders to steamroll a fat 82-run win in the 28th match of the Indian Premier League 2020. AB de Villiers engineered a visual treat worth 73* off 33 balls before two-wicket hauls from Washington Sundar and Chris Morris sealed the deal, as RCB locomoted to the third spot on Monday, October 12.
On a venue that has proven to be a spinner's worst nightmare, that wreckers-in-chief Yuzvendra Chahal and Sundar conceded just 32 runs in eight overs amongst them while booking three scalps deserves a 21-gun salute.
KKR chase derails before taking flight
Franchises generally don't lose sleep when asked to chase at Sharjah, regardless of the enormity of the task. Albeit the odds were heavily stacked against KKR tonight, given the demons lurking from the surface. And the dominoes tumbled in a rather uniform pattern. Tom Banton was a bundle of nerves on his debut, ricocheting Navdeep Saini's missile onto his stumps. Let alone playing his designated role of an enabler, Nitish Rana struggled even to navigate the ball off the thirty-yard circle, eventually perishing castled to an ungainly swipe off Sundar.
Shubman Gill, the lone wolf who'd hitherto bound KKR's riposte with a sedate 34, fell prey to an episode of hideous miscommunication in an approach to sneak a tight run from backward point. Fresh off a morale-boosting half-century in a winning cause, talisman Dinesh Karthik couldn't come to KKR's rescue either as Chahal had him chopping on to a donkey-drop.
Morgan, fit-again Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, and Rahul Tripathi each located catchers off miscued swats in their endeavour to narrow the deficit. Kamlesh Nagarkoti was the final casualty as RCB's net-run-rate tickled pink with a boost of such gigantic proportions.
Finch bites the bullet to good results
Having blown hot and cold in recent times, RCB's openers blazed a trail from the outset. Aaron Finch, a perpetual victim of the front-foot syndrome, had obviously gone back to the drawing board and figured out an escape route. What he did wasn't rocket science though. The right-hander shimmied down the track almost compulsively in a bid to negate the lateral movement and get his feet up and moving before impact. Safe to say, it worked like a charm. He whipped Pat Cummins through mid-wicket before putting his dancing shoes on to marmalize Prasidh Krishna over long-on. Devdutt Padikkal too made his presence felt with a couple of authoritative slashes off Pat Cummins, with no intentions whatsoever of keeping the ball along the turf.
KKR read the conditions well to bounce back
Assuming the responsibility of bowling the last over in the PowerPlay, Andre Russell banged hard seven-meter lengths to prod Finch into his shell while also mixing the pace to leave him guessing. The variations could've materialised in an incision had Nagarkoti not allowed Finch's aerial jab to burst through his fingers at short-fine. Declined entry in the wickets column, the star all-rounder took matters into his own hands, with his nippy yorker slinking underneath Padikkal's hoick to uproot the middle-stump for 32. Finch ploughed the same furrow, creating room to glide his arms only to let Krishna's half-volley strike timber.
The scoreboard gleamed a trifling 107/2 in 14 overs despite breezy knocks from Padikkal and Finch, thanks to KKR thinking on their feet and amending their strategy midway to a cocktail of off-cutters and short-of-good knuckleballs.
ABD beats the living daylights out of KKR
However, the moment of truth awaited the purple shirts. Having bided his time initially to waddle to 10 off 11 balls, AB de Villiers threw caution to the wind, bulldozing an awesome 63 off the next 22 to pour cold water on KKR's stranglehold. Virat Kohli bore witness to this eye-popping massacre deliberately from the non-striker's end, milking singles to bring the range-hitting tormentor into the thick of the action during their century partnership for the third wicket. The increasingly sluggish nature of the pitch hardly ruffled de Villiers, who belaboured KKR left, right, and centre to help RCB raid a cosmic 80 off the last five overs.
What's next in store?
In the pink of their health with five victories in seven games, RCB shouldn't break a sweat in elbowing a woebegone Kings XI Punjab on Thursday, October 15. The next hurdle in KKR's ebb-and-flow ride is table-toppers Mumbai Indians, quite a daunting one at that, with whom they lock horns on Friday, October 16.