Rajat Patidar finally found some form with the bat which was crucial to RCB’S chances in IPL 2024.Exactly a month after their last win, RCB forced their hosts to veer away from their recent template by asking them to chase a strong total of 206 on a two-paced track courtesy blazing knocks from Rajat Patidar (50 off 20) and Cameron Green (37* off 20) before their spinners stepped up to take four crucial wickets in an eventual 35-run victory.
Rajat Patidar’s 19-ball half-century and quick-fire cameos from Cameron Green and Faf du Plessis. Virat Kohli also scored his 53rd IPL fifty, but his 51 in 43 balls came at a strike rate of 118.60,RCB also had a strong day with the bat, following a big slowdown. IPL 2024’s laggards RCB snapped a six-game losing streak to clip the high-flying SRH in Hyderabad to register their second win of the season.
Pitch and Toss
“We are on pitch number 2, this is the same surface that was used against Mumbai Indians where that initial score of 277 was made. Dimensions – 63m and 66m square, down the ground – a 76m hit. Certainly think that we can see 300 here tonight because the way SRH have been playing, they are going out all guns blazing.
When you look at this pitch, it’s absolutely rock hard and it’s got a little bit of roughness to it, but it looks like a dry creek bed, so it should come onto the bat beautifully. In the match against Mumbai, there were 38 sixes hit, so expect that tonight. These two teams are power-packed.” reckoned Samuel Badree and Simon Katich.
RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis won the toss and chose to bat with no changes in the team and included Swapnil Singh as Impact Substitute. SRH skipper Pat Cummins asked to bat second made one change bringing in Jaydev Unadkat for Washington Sundar.
A tug and a counter-tug as Virat Kohli steadied RCB in the powerplay.
Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis raced off the blocks to 43/0 in 3 overs after RCB won the toss. The first ball of the fourth over, bowled by T. Natarajan, was flicked for four by Kohli. The next 11 balls of the PowerPlay fetched just 4 runs as Natarajan dismissed du Plessis (25 off 12) with a slower short-ball before Shahbaz Ahmed bowled a two-run first over. Kohli found a six as Natarajan became the only SRH bowler to get a second PowerPlay over to give the visitors 61/1 after six overs.
With big overs against Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Cummins with the new ball, the pair of du Plessis and Kohli had given RCB a rollicking start at 43 for no loss after three overs. But the dismissals of du Plessis for a 12-ball 25 and Jacks for 6, along with some tidy overs from T Natarajan and Shahbaz saw Kohli losing his fluency. From racing away to 23 in his first 11 balls, Kohli labored to score his next 28 runs in 32 deliveries.
Rajat Patidar makes up for Kohli’s slowdown.
Kohli began the post-PowerPlay phase batting on 32 off 18. He was eventually dismissed for a 43-ball 51 having hit only 19 runs from his final 25 balls at a strike-rate of 76, scoring no boundaries against the spread out field. He also made just a run-a-ball 14 in a partnership of 65 off 34 balls.
His partner, Rajat Patidar, scored a 19-ball half-century, hitting four of his five sixes in a row in the 11th over bowled by Mayank Markande. But on a pitch that was gripping and stopping, SRH fought back again by bowling overs 12-15 without conceding a four. Jaydev Unadkat was the pick of the hosts’ bowlers, his slower ones, into-the-wicket deliveries making shot-making difficult. Playing his 100th IPL game, Unadkat dismissed Rajat Patidar, Kohli and Mahipal Lomror.
The squeeze was provided by Shahbaz after the powerplay, and by the left-arm seam-bowling pair of Jaydev Unadkat and Natarajan with both relying on their assortment of slower balls. But the presence of Rajat Patidar did not let RCB’s scoring rate drop. Rajat Patidar came into the game with a strike rate of 125 against pacers and 197 against spinners in this IPL, and banked on his strength to score the joint second-fastest fifty in RCB’s history.
Rajat Patidar picked on Mayank Markande from the get-go, first clubbing him for a six in the ninth over, and then ransacking the leg spinner for four back-to-back sixes to take 27 off the 11th over. Soon enough, Rajat Patidar had overtaken Kohli and reached his fifty well before the opener, but fell to Unadkat in pursuit of another big shot.
Cameron Green plays the slower ball well to take RCB to 206 for 7 after 20 overs.
Cameron Green was the best of RCB’s batters against the slower deliveries. He hit four of his five boundaries against compatriot Pat Cummins, whose four overs cost 55. The SRH captain, however, was excellent with his use of bowlers with Shahbaz’s three overs for 14 runs covered up excellently for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who bowled just one over.
Unadkat, playing his 100th IPL game, then dismissed Kohli in the 15th over and Mahipal Lomror in the 17th, but from the other end Green ensured RCB got the strong finish they needed. He was particularly lethal against his Australia captain Cummins, drilling him for four fours across two overs in the last five to finish unbeaten on a 20-ball 37. T
he success of left-arm spinner Shahbaz (0 for 14 in three overs) may have prompted RCB to bring in spin-bowling allrounder Swapnil as an Impact Player in the 19th over of the first innings, and before his bowling jolts in the chase, he contributed with a six-ball 12 in the 20th over to help RCB past 200.
A rare top-order collapse for SRH as Impact Sub Swapnil Singh shines with the ball
Will Jacks opened the bowling in the corresponding fixture in Bengaluru but the match-up play didn’t pay any dividends then. But today it did. The final ball of the first over gripped a touch but it was the length that did for Travis Head, who miscued a slog to backward point. Jacks’ second over went for 20 but once Yash Dayal had Abhishek Sharma miscuing a loft to fall for a 13-ball 31.
RCB were on top. Swapnil Singh gave away 19 in his first over but struck twice to dismiss the big-hitting Protea pair of Markram and Klaasen as SRH were reduced to 62/4 after six overs.
SRH’s record-breaking totals in IPL 2024 have all come batting first. So RCB robbed them of that opportunity when du Plessis chose to set a target instead. He said he wanted to put SRH under scoreboard pressure, although 206 could have well been within SRH’s territory.
But that changed in the first half of the chase as SRH crumbled to RCB’s use of spin. Jacks’ offspin, turning away from the two SRH openers, had Head top-edge for 1 in the first over. Abhishek Sharma counterattacked with 31 in 13 balls, but in his bid to keep going hard, he fell to Yash Dayal in the fourth.
Even though the openers fell unusually early for SRH, Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen showed that they were in no mood to slow down. Together they struck 19 off Swapnil’s first over, but their aggression caused their downfall as the left-arm spinner removed both in the same over. Markram was lbw off a full toss coming down the track while Klaasen holed out attempting a big shot.
Karn Sharma flies the spin flag for RCB
Straight after the PowerPlay, Karn Sharma struck in his first and second overs to leave SRH reeling at 85/6. First he castled Nitish Reddy, who missed an attempted reverse sweep. Abdul Samad then was beaten by the length after stepping down the pitch and chipping a simple return catch.
Cummins sparked a mini-revival by slogging Swapnil for a pair of sixes and then hit his first two balls of the next, bowled by Karn, for a four and a six. The SRH skipper eventually fell to Green, slicing an attempted slash towards point. Karn, though, bowled out with excellent figures of 2 for 29. Du Plessis soon brought on leg spinner Karn to attack SRH further, and in consecutive overs he removed Nitish Kumar Reddy and Abdul Samad.
An insipid finish to a tale which RCB won by 35 runs.
Pat Cummins hammered 31 off 15 and Shahbaz Ahmed remained unbeaten on 40, but by then SRH were basically looking to protect their net run rate. The final chapter of this game had a ceremonial feel to it with the game having gone well past SRH by then. Green added a second wicket, that off Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but SRH’s ninth wicket pair hung on to reduce the final margin of defeat to 35 runs.
Favorites to chase 207 down, SRH lost their way right from the opening over when part-time offspinner Will Jacks won the tactical battle against left-hand batter Travis Head. Making his debut for RCB, Swapnil Singh and experienced wrist spinner Karn Sharma then caused further damage. By the time the tenth over rolled along, SRH were 85 for 6, and the result was pretty much decided.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) rode on the success of their spinners – considered the team’s least-fancied department – to force big-hitting Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) into submission in Hyderabad. Their 35-run victory on Thursday, the season’s second for RCB, also ended their six-game losing streak and kept them alive for playoff contention.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
Pat Cummins the loosing skipper said :
“Not an ideal night. Few over par with the ball and unfortunately lost a few wickets throughout our innings. We were gonna bat first, it seems to be working for us. Before the last few wins, we were thinking that we were a bowl-first team. Didn’t go our way. (Message to the group) I speak after wins, Dan (Vettori) speaks after losses,”
“The boys have been going really well, it’s T20 cricket, you are not going to win every game. Don’t dwell on this too much. (High risk, high reward approach with the bat) I think it’s our strong suit. It’s not going to work every game. One or two games where it hasn’t gone our way at the start, we still managed to get a good total. Still think this is the way forward for our boys,” he added.
Faf Du Plessis the winning skipper said :
“Last two games, we’ve shown great signs of fight. SRH game was 270 plus, we got 260. KKR game as well – 1 run. We’ve been close for a while, but you need to win matches to get confidence as a group. Will sleep easier tonight. You can’t speak confidence into the group, can’t fake confidence into the group,”
“Only thing that gives confidence is performances. The competition is so strong, the teams are so strong that you’ll get hurt if you’re not at 100 percent. More guys scoring runs now. First half of the tournament only Virat was scoring runs. Greeny scoring runs now will be massive for him. We know that Chinnaswamy, that’s been a big frustration for us. It’s a difficult ground to bowl at. We’ve tried to find a recipe for it, but it’s tough,” he stated.
Rajat Patidar was Player of the Match for his 50 of 20 balls said :
“I was just keeping things in my mind that control the controllable. Whenever I go back home, I try to solve every problem which I faced. I go for skillful batting setup. Nothing like that (plan to target spin?). Today I was backing myself to be in good shape against every bowler,”
RCB have something to smile about as they snap their losing streak of six matches. Kohli breaks into laughter as he’s hugged by Dayal. It was a job well done today by the visitors against the batting powerhouse of the Sunrisers. The pitch, which was on the slower side, certainly played its part and wasn’t to the liking of the big-hitters that the hosts possess. But RCB used the conditions smartly as well, opening the bowling with Jacks against the destructive left-handed duo.
There was some grip on offer, and Jacks struck gold with the wicket of Travis Head in the first over. It was just a sign of things to come as spin went on to do a lot more damage, the highlight being the wicket of Klaasen by RCB debutant Swapnil Singh. Karn Sharma bowled superbly as well to finish with figures of 2/29 and the three of them derailed SRH’s run chase entirely. Whatever fight was left was snuffed out by Cameron Green who had a good outing with both bat and ball.
The struggles of Kohli and the Sunrisers on that pitch just go on to show how good that knock from Rajat Patidar was. He timed the ball beautifully, scored four consecutive sixes off Markande, and brought up his fifty off just 19 balls. Cameron Green also played a big role to finish the innings nicely with the bat. And then RCB’s spinners came to the party as Sunrisers ran out of steam for once. It seemed like the top three on the table were pulling away from the rest, but this result opens things up a bit.
RCB have a short turnaround before their Sunday afternoon fixture away to the Gujarat Titans. SRH play the late evening fixture on the same day in Chennai against the holders CSK