RCB have faced their first defeat in this season at their home ground after 2 dominating wins in away games. RCB‘s home ground curse continues in this season too. Many teams are worrying about not having a home advantage but RCB are suffering with their home ground for the past 17 years. GT won the match by 8 wickets while chasing 170 quite easily. Let’s see about the main reasons for their loss in this match.
Going hard on every ball
RCB batters were batting to set a target of 220 or above, but they didn’t read the pitch that well. The pitch was slightly dry and had a bit of a tinge of grass, which assisted the fast bowlers well. RCB lot their top 3 wickets inside the powerplay to GT fast bowlers, which put them in the back seat.
Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, and Devdutt Padikkal went hard on every ball and tried to slog the fast bowlers when the ball is seaming and lost their wickets eventually.
The middle order batters had to rebuild a partnership, and it took some time for them to settle. RCB were 20-25 runs short from the winning total in this pitch.which made GT batters to take some time to settle in the crease and approach the chase without any pressure.
Failed to get the early blows
When you are defending 170 at Chinnaswamy, the only way you have a chance is to take early wickets in the first two overs and rip their top order. But Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan survived the first 4 overs brilliantly and won the game in the powerplay itself. The duo was also taking quick singles, which put pressure on the fielders and kept the scoreboard moving.
RCB gave easy singles and didn’t take any measures to cut those singles to put more dot balls to put pressure on the batters. They finally got Captain Gill’s wicket in the 5th over, but that didn’t affect GT in any way. Buttler came in at no.3 and he, along with Sai, made a match-winning partnership of 75 runs for the 2nd wicket, which sealed the game for the Gujarat Titans.
Poor Bowling plans
RCB’s bowling plans against GT were not on par yesterday. Sai Kishore showed clearly in the first innings that spinners will get some assistance from the pitch if they bowl slower. But RCB took Rashik Salem as their impact player sub instead of Suyash Sharma in the 2nd innings.
When the pacers were struggling to take wickets and when your lead spinner Krunal Pandya also couldn’t find the Rhythm, Patidar could have tried Liam Livingstone much earlier to see a chance when you don’t have Suyash Sharma. But he stuck with the fast bowlers and brought Livingstone into the attack very late in the 15th over when the game was already over.
RCB bowlers were bowling to Rutherford’s strength yesterday. They were bowling into his body and targetting his pads, which is the length he loves. Rutherford waited for the bowler to bowl there, and he smashed those deliveries easily,which helped GT to finish the chase quickly to boost their NRR.
In GT’ first match against Punjab, when they were in a comfortable position to chase, Vyshak Vijayakumar came prepared with a plan of bowling wide yorkers to Rutherford. he clearly exposed Rutherford’s weakness of wide yorkers on that day. Yesterday RCB bowlers didn’t bowl a single wide yorker or even an outside the off stump delivery to him.
Early stages in the tournament, Hope RCB bounce back well in their next match against Mumbai Indians on Monday.
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