Bangalore humbled Delhi by 3 wickets at Kotla
By Suneer Chowdhary
New Delhi: Apr 26, 2011
It was a game that saw fortunes fluctuating with every passage of time but in the end, the Royal Challengers Bangalore had enough in the tank to seal a win over the Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi.
Bangalore won by three wickets with three balls to spare.
If it was Chris Gayle who had pasted the Kolkata Knight Riders to all parts of the park in Bangalore’s previous game, it was the chance of a sublime Virat Kohli to showcase what he is made of. Kohli had gone into the World Cup with a lot of promise and while he did show that in parts, his shunting up and down the order seemed to have affected him.
It was the Kohli of old tonight.
Coming into bat on the third ball of innings, he first punched and cut Ashok Dinda to the fence before he carved Irfan Pathan for another four boundaries in his very first over.
For some time, the usually aggressively Gayle was a mere spectator before he launched into Morne Morkel for a four and a six.
Dinda conceded 17 in his second over as the Royal Challengers got to 65 for one at the end of the sixth over, marching on towards the target in a hurry.
The end of the Powerplay overs did not make things better for the home team. Even with the field spread wide, Kohli managed to find the gaps, flicking Umesh Yadav to the boundary and then cutting him hard over the fence.
While James Hopes managed to curtail the Gayle-cameo by getting him to top-edge the ball for 26 (14 balls), Kohli brought his half-century up off the next delivery, getting there in 31 balls. At 88 for two in the eight overs, the result seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
Probably, even when AB de Villiers was run-out off a direct hit from the fence by Dave Warner with Bangalore at 95 for three.
The pendulum swung a little in the 10th over when Kohli inside-edged Morkel onto his stumps and when Cheteshwar Pujara had mistimed a pull to the fielder at mid-wicket, the Royal Challengers needed 54 off the last 45.
The asking rate climbed up to almost nine per over before Daniel Vettori smacked a six off Irfan Pathan in the 16th over.
With 32 required off the last four overs, Sehwag had no option but to get Morkel back into the attack to send down his last over.
Tiwary pulled a six off the first ball from Morkel and when the bowler send down a no-ball and a wide amongst the next few, Bangalore needed 22 in the last 21 balls. With Tiwary and Vettori on the crease, the game seemed to have swung into their favour again.
And then, it swung again.
Tiwary tried to guide Morkel to the third-man and the edge went into the keeper’s hands while Abhimany Mithun tried to hoick the bowler, only to be caught. Bangalore had lost two for almost nothing.
22 were needed off the last three and 20 off the last 14 before the Royal Challengers were brought back into the game by a couple of boundaries on either side of the wicket by Syed Mohammad.
With only 12 required off the last two overs, Vettori and Mohammad saw the team through to the win in the end.
Earlier, Delhi made three changes to the playing eleven from the previous game. They got in Umesh Yadav, Matthew Wade and Ashok Dinda to replace Varun Aaron, Aaron Finch and Ajit Agarkar. On the other hand, Bangalore exchanged Asad Pathan with Abhimanyu Mithun.
Zaheer Khan overcame his form issues this IPL to bowl a three-over spell and got rid of Dave Warner cheaply while Virender Sehwag was dismissed run-out, his second such failing in the tournament.
Wade did not last too long and Delhi were 68 for three in the tenth over, needing a big injection of resurrection.
James Hopes and Venugopal Rao rebuilt the innings through a fourth-wicket stand of 47 runs and while Rao failed to last the distance, the Daredevils would have felt safe with the 45 that came off the last five overs.
Hopes scored a half-century while Irfan Pathan hit a couple of sixes to round it off at 160 for six in the 20 overs.
Abhimanyu Mithun picked up a couple of wickets while Zaheer, Vettori and Aravind picked up one.
Brief Scores: DD 160 for six in 20 overs (James Hopes 54, Virender Sehwag 25; Abhimanyu Mithun 2 for 37, Daniel Vettori 1 for 25) lost to RCB 161 for 7 in 19.3 overs (Virat Kohli 56, Chris Gayle 26; Morne Morkel 3 for 25, Yogesh Nagar 1 for 3) by 3 wickets.
Man of the Match: Virat Kohli
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
Pictures © AFP