After a long streak of bad performance and back to back losses in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), finally, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ended their journey on a decent note as they won their last game in this tournament and defeated Delhi Daredevils (DD) at their home by 10 runs. This was the last game of the league phase and now the playoffs are all set to begin with its first qualifier scheduled on May 16 and will be played between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Both Delhi and Bangalore were at a no loss no gain situation as the road to payoff were blocked for the teams. Still, to carry out the spirit of the game, both the sides fought willfully to gain two points.
Earlier this day, RCB skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat first. Chris gayle and Vishnu Vinod came to open and after a long time, Chris Gayle was back into his souls. His massive knock of 48 runs off 38 in the beginning and later, Virat Kohli’s 58 off 45 helped their team to put a competitive total of 161 runs.
For the last time in this tournament, Delhi came to bat and they have a huge but chasable target of 162 runs to chase. Following the batting order, Sanju Samson and Karun Nair came to open but lost the plot right there. In the second ball of the second innings, Sanju Samson was dismissed by debutant Avesh Khan for a duck.
After Samson’s dismissal, Karun Nair and Shreyas Iyer took the charge and took the voyage ahead. Unlike last games, it was Shane Watson’s day and he delivered a superb spell. He conceded 16 overs and took the wicket of Karun Nair.
Shreyas Iyer was then accompanied by Rishabh Pant but they could only add 46 runs for the third wicket before Harshal Patel took the wicket of Shreyas Iyer. But Rishabh Pant looked confident as he was the only one who sustained the Bangalore bowling attack but was facing a lack of partners at the other end.
Marlon Samuels (0), Corey Anderson (3) and Pat Cummins (7) failed to support Pant and returned to pavilion very soon after coming to bat. In the 17th over, another misfortune happened for the Delhi Daredevils as Rishabh Pant, who was heading towards his 50, got dismissed by Harshal Patel at 45 and had to return to the dressing room.
In the last few overs, Mohammad Shami gave a little hope that DD might swipe off the game as he knocked 21 runs off 9 balls but he couldn’t carry his batting till the end and Delhi lost the game by 10 runs.
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