Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers steamroll Rajasthan Royals to strengthen playoff chances
The Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur played host to the much-hyped battle between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals and the home team left their supporters disappointed as they registered a gut-wrenching defeat by 112 runs owing to carnage by the visiting bowlers.
Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals were up against each other in a do-or-die match on Saturday afternoon as the race for the playoffs intensified in the 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League. The visiting skipper Faf du Plessis won against the home leader Sanju Samson in the battle of toss and RCB elected to bat first.
The Bangalore outfit got off to a good start with the opening pair of Virat Kohli and Faf stitching a crucial partnership of 50 runs. However, the former Indian skipper had to go back to the pavilion after scoring only 18 runs off 19 balls as KM Asif picked his first wicket of the night.
What followed after that was a crackling partnership between Du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell in the middle. The two batters added 69 runs for the second wicket as RCB reached a score of 119 runs in 14.5 overs. The skipper hammered a much-needed half-century to solidify his place at the top of the table in the run-scoring charts of IPL 2023.
Faf was the top run-scorer for RCB yet again
Maxwell was also fantastic with the bat as he smacked 54 runs off just 33 balls with the help of five boundaries and three sixes. There was a lean patch for the visitors in the middle as they lost their three middle-order batters namely Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik, and Michael Bracewell quickly.
Asif picked another wicket for his team in the form of Faf du Plessis while Adam Zampa managed to send Lomror and Karthik back to the pavilion at scores of one and zero runs respectively. Apart from the two, Sandeep Sharma was the other RR bowler to scalp a wicket. He dismissed the hard-hitter Maxwell to put a halt to RCB’s run-scoring spree.
Despite the quick wickets, Bangalore managed to post a good score of 171 runs on the board in their allotted 20 overs courtesy of Anuj Rawat. The 23-year-old went berserk on the 22-yard pitch as he hammered 29 runs off just 11 balls. His knock was laced with three boundaries and two maximums as he remained not out.
172 was not a hard target for Rajasthan Royals to chase considering the blistering form of their opening duo Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler. The two batters came into the game on the back of some scintillating performances but they failed to work their charm on Saturday. Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers owned the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in the second innings as Rajasthan’s batting line-up collapsed like a deck of cards.
The Indian seamer Mohammed Siraj gave the first breakthrough to his franchise as he dismissed IPL 2023’s second-highest run-getter Yashasvi Jaiswal for a two-ball duck. The young lad was soon followed by his other opening batter Jos Buttler. The English skipper handed his wicket to Wayne Parnell after facing two balls and scoring a duck.
Parnell did not stop his carnage with Buttler’s wicket as he made the opposition skipper Sanju Samson his next target. The captain ended up with a knock of four runs off five balls as he left RR in trouble with a score of 7-3 in just 1.4 overs. The former English captain Joe Root became the third target of the 33-year-old pacer in the sixth over.
Meanwhile, Michael Bracewell also added to Rajasthan’s misery as he scalped the wickets of Devdutt Padikkal and Dhruv Jurel when they were playing at four runs and one run respectively. Shimron Hetmyer was the only saving grace for the hosts as he tried to bring back some momentum.
However, the West Indies power-hitter was cleaned up by Glenn Maxwell and his innings of 35 runs off 19 balls came to an end in the tenth over. Notably, it was Karn Sharma who picked the last two wickets for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the form of Adam Zampa and KM Asif.
The collective assault by the RCB bowlers resulted in RR getting bundled at a score of 59 runs in just 10.3 overs. Parnell was the one to take the Player of the Match award home as RCB solidified their chances of making it to the top four.
The Royal Challengers will now travel to Hyderabad to face the Sunrisers on Thursday before hosting the defending champions Gujarat Titans in the last league match of IPL 2023. On the other hand, the Royals’ playoffs hopes are bleak now and Samson’s men would require a big win on Friday against Punjab Kings in Dharamsala.