A tight bowling effort following the batting exploits of Will Jacks and Rajat Patidar gave RCB their fifth win on the bounce, and kept them alive in the race to the playoffs. RCB stuttered with the bat a little after flying in the first half, but their total of 187/9 proved more than sufficient following DC’s early collapse. This result pushed RCB up to the fifth spot (on the basis of NRR).
Rajat Patidar and Will Jacks put to rest any such worries with a counter-attacking partnership, but the DC bowlers struck back with a near-perfect death-overs show to restrict RCB to 187 for 9.The M Chinnaswamy had gone all quiet when RCB lost Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli inside four overs. It seemed their batting troubles from the start of the season had come back to haunt them.
Pitch and Toss
“The overhead conditions are a bit cloudy. Pitch no.8 today, there was a 182 that was chased down earlier then there was 287 and the last game was 147 which was chased down comfortably. There was a lot of live grass in the middle with the ends being dry. The grass has now been shaved off, this is now very dry and extremely hard. No grass to speak of. This venue has been unpredictable, could be a score in the high 190s, should be good for batting. There probably won’t be any dew as well tonight” say Ian Bishop and Matthew Hayden.
Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel won the toss and chose to field first as Kumar Kushagra comes in for Rishabh Pant . RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis bowling first made no changes to their winning combination.
The Virat Kohli-Ishant Sharma duel lights up the start
In his 250th IPL outing, Kohli had a relatively easy opponent first up: Ishant Sharma, against whom he had scored 93 off 67 balls without being dismissed. He kept out a sharp inswinger on the first ball of the match and then pulled one over square leg for a six on the last ball of the opening over.
In Ishant’s next over, he hit a four – via an outside edge – and a crisply-timed no-look shot over wide long-on for a six off successive balls before nicking one behind to the wicketkeeper. With a 13-ball 27, Kohli made his intent clear but failed to do justice to the Midas touch he seemed to be in.
Virat Kohli middled the life out of the ball for three and a half overs, before some friendly banter with Ishant Sharma ended with the veteran pacer nicking him off in the fourth over. Before this eventful over, Mukesh Kumar bowled a spectacular one, giving away just two singles and getting Faf du Plessis to find the third man fielder with his big heave. Rajat Patidar then came out swinging, getting 22 off the 11 PowerPlay deliveries he faced.
Rajat Patidar and Jacks make DC pay in the middle overs
Before Sunday, Rajat Patidar had been dismissed by pace in eight of his 11 outings in IPL 2024. But here, he raced to 15 off eight balls with the help of three fours in a Mukesh Kumar over. When Axar Patel, the stand-in captain for DC, brought himself on in the sixth over, Rajat Patidar duly slogged him over deep midwicket. Rajat Patidar also tore into Kuldeep Yadav, bashing him straight over his head.
At the other end, Jacks also hit Kuldeep for a six in each of his first two overs as RCB put the dismissals of their openers behind them. Thanks to the assault from Rajat Patidar and Jacks, RCB scored 49 in the four overs after the powerplay. In the process, Rajat Patidar brought up his fourth half-century in his last five innings, and his first in Bengaluru this season. That the fielders missed four chances in 11 balls, including two dropped catches in a Kuldeep over, did not help DC.
Jacks and Rajat Patidar kept their feet firmly on the fifth gear even as the fields spread out. They began by tonking a six each off Kuldeep Yadav in his first over. Rajat Patidar went after DC’s stand-in captain Axar Patel too as both batters also enjoyed a charmed life in the middle overs. DC had plenty of chances to send both the batters out, with the easiest of the lot going to Shai Hope at long-on which the West Indian spilled to give Rajat Patidar a life.
Rasikh Salam arrived and nearly foxed Jacks with a change of pace but a diving Axar at cover couldn’t hold onto the ball that could’ve sent Jacks packing. DC, however, didn’t make the most of it as they went from 110 in 10 overs to 138 in 15, with both the batters falling – coincidentally to catches by Axar. Khaleel Ahmed, Axar and Kuldeep bowled three incredibly tight overs for a combined tally of 10 runs.
DC fight back through Khaleel, Salam to restrict RCB to 187 for 9.
DC brought Rasikh Salam on in the 11th over and he could have dismissed Patidar first ball but Axar failed to hang on at cover. But Salam exacted revenge in his next over with a hard-length ball. Patidar looked to force it over the off side off the front foot but ended up miscuing it towards cover, where Axar moved to his right to pouch that. That brought curtains to his 88-run stand with Jacks, who fell soon after to Kuldeep.
But Mahipal Lomror and Cameron Green combined to take 22 off Kuldeep’s final over, the 17th of the innings, to raise RCB’s hopes. Khaleel Ahmed, who was taken for 23 in his first two overs, struck twice in three balls in the 18th over to dismiss Lomror and Dinesh Karthik. He finished with figures of 2 for 31 from his four overs. Salam got rid of Swapnil Singh and returned 2 for 23 from his three. DC conceded only 40 in the last four overs, and picked up five wickets, to keep RCB under 200 on a surface where the ball was gripping.
Cameron Green and Mahipal Lomror smashed three sixes in a 22-run over from Kuldeep Yadav but RCB stuttered to an underwhelming finish. In the other four overs in this phase, they managed just 27 runs as Khaleel picked two wickets in an over and Salam’s change of pace was effective too.
DC lose four wickets in Powerplay frenetic start
Jake Fraser-McGurk hit the first ball he faced for a six, and kept swinging for the fences in his short stay but RCB made repeated incisions to dent the chase early. David Warner returned and opened the innings as the impact player but fell in the first over to the spin of Swapnil Singh when he couldn’t clear the long-on fielder. Yash Dayal hurried the young and impressive Abhishek Porel with a short ball first up, and had him caught at cover.
Fraser-McGurk, who even took on Mohammed Siraj in the second over, then suffered an unfortunate dismissal when a straight drive from Shai Hope ricocheted off Dayal’s hand and onto the stumps at the non-striker’s end with the Australian out of his crease. Kumar Kushagra, coming in for the suspended Rishabh Pant was then trapped leg before by Siraj to leave DC reeling at four down. Hope and Axar dragged DC out off the early rummage to a healthy scoring rate at the end of the first phase.
Fraser-McGurk played true to his form and struck left-arm spinner Swapnil for a massive six over wide long-off to get going. Among those who have faced at least 30 balls of spin in IPL 2024, no batter strikes it higher than Fraser-McGurk’s 262.85. But a lucky break for RCB meant the DC opener walked back cheaply.
This was after David Warner, back in the side after missing four matches, was out for 1 off two. Dayal had bounced out Abishek Porel cheaply. It was only the second time this season that RCB picked up four wickets inside the powerplay – earlier, they had done so against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Axar Patel keeps DC just about alive in middle overs
Axar Patel and Shai Hope started well in the middle overs given they had the constraints of having lost four wickets and had a tough asking rate to maintain. They did just that for three overs before Hope fell to a hit-me full-toss outside the off-stump that he hit straight to long-on. A mix-up ensued soon that sent Tristan Stubbs packing, leaving Axar with a mountain to climb.
Axar kick-started that ascent in the company of Salam, who turned over the strike at every opportunity while his skipper chanced his arms. The pair added 37 in 23 balls after Stubbs’s dismissal but Salam fell on the 24th, trying to go big and miscuing his shot. It left DC with 61 to get from 30 balls.
In the middle overs, RCB seamers had a clear plan of hitting the good length and denying the batters room to free their arms. Between overs eight and 11, they bowled 16 deliveries on either good length or just short of it, and gave away just 15 runs off them.
Dayal ends chase with Axar’s wicket as RCB cruise to their fifth victory on the trot
Axar Patel had no choice but to throw his bat around and hope for the best. He did that and top-edged one off Dayal in the 16th over, getting caught by Faf du Plessis at backward point. That effectively brought down the curtains on DC. Kuldeep Yadav dragged it till the final over in futility before Dayal completed the win with his third wicket of the game.
Only Axar, leading for the first time in the IPL, managed to offer some resistance with his second half-century of the season. He bookended Jacks’ only over with sixes to bring up his fifty off 30 balls. But long before he top-edged Dayal over backward point, where du Plessis back-tracked and took a tumbling catch, the result was a foregone conclusion.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Axar Patel the loosing skipper said :
“Dropped catches hurt us. Could’ve restricted them to 150. When you lose four wickets in powerplay, you’re always chasing the game. 160-170 would’ve been a par score. Pitch was two-paced. Some were skidding, some were holding. When your main players are run out and you lose four in powerplay, you’re chasing the game. Anything can happen, but haven’t thought that far ahead,”
Faf Du Plessis the winning skipper said :
“Brilliant, we put some good performances and really pleased. 1st half of the season, things didn’t quite come together and from that batting perspective and bowling perspective we have been able to put it together now. Sometimes people talk about match-ups and all, but as a left hander with the ball spinning in, you hope that works out sometimes and he’s (Swapnil) done brilliantly for us,”
“Lot of work has gone behind the scenes, and we are getting it right and I feel there is a lot more variety in our bowling now and Yash and Lockie have been exceptional the last few games. We wanna play a style of cricket, to be bold and put some performances together and keep going,” he added.
Cameron Green Player of the Match for his all round show said :
“Great game for our team. This year there has been so many high scores and there is little bit something there for the bowler and our bowlers were brilliant from the start. We identified that pace on is easy to play, Khaleel bowled a lot of off-cutters which were gripping and tough to target and we tried the same in our bowling. This is such a small ground and there is something in there for the bowlers which is good to see,”
What lies ahead for RCB & DC
All those dropped catches and misfields certainly came back to haunt DC. Although they did well to pull things back in the back end of RCB’s innings, they needed a bit more than luck during the chase after losing 4 wickets inside 4 overs. Despite losing Warner off the opening over, Fraser-McGurk continued to bat on his merry way but a freakish run-out (palmed over the bowler in his follow through) in the 3rd over put a huge dent which DC failed to recover.
Hope and Axar stitched a 56-run stand for the 5th wicket, and, unfortunately for DC, they lost the wickets of Hope and Stubbs in quick succession to make thigs that much more difficult for them. Axar’s lone battle only helped in bringing down the defeat margin as RCB romped home to keep their playoff hopes alive.
5th spot for RCB as their playoff hopes shine brighter with each passing day. Remember, no other team has won 5 on the bounce this season except RCB. Can they make it six on the bounce and sneak into the playoffs? A lot of things need to go their way for that to materialize. All of that for later, but locking horns tomorrow will be table-toppers KKR against GT in Ahmedabad. A must-win for GT. Meanwhile, a win for KKR will ensure a top-two finish for them.
Battle of NRR
RCB will surpass CSK’s run-rate if they win by 18 runs or more on May 18 (assuming they score 200 batting first). If the target is 201, they’ll have to chase it down with roughly 11 balls remaining.Six days later on May 18, RCB host CSK in what could be a virtual quarterfinal if all other results go their way. DC head home for their last game of the season – against LSG – on May 14.