Game number 5 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017 between the Royal challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Delhi Daredevils (RCB) though missed Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers at their home ground but it was Kedar Jadhav who took all the responsibility to score for his team at the time when they survived few quick losses.
Shane Watson won the toss and this time he elected to bat first. Unlike the previous game, he himself opened the innings with Chris Gayle instead of sending Mandeep Singh at number 2. The move worked as Watson opened the game hitting a four to Zaheer Khan. When 9 runs came off the first over, it seemed that this partnership will brew further but soon in the fourth over, the big man, Chris Gayle, departed for after scoring just 6 runs. He was dismissed by Chris Morris and Bangalore had the first scalp.
Within a total of 55 runs, top 3 batsmen of the team were back to the pavilion and then the showman arrived on the ground. Kedar Jadhav came in at number 4. Nobody had a prior idea that what he could do but Jadhav left the bowlers in a state of trauma as he sent every second ball out of the boundary. He had his beast mode on and it’s pretty sure that even Virat Kohli would be proud of this little Marathi man who created a whirlpool on the ground and scored a half century.
From 55/3 to 142/6, Jadhav carried the inning on his shoulder and scored his highest runs – 69 – in the IPLs. But unfortunately, he was dismissed by Zaheer Khan in the 17th over and Delhi got the breakthrough. He built a partnership of 87 runs with Stuart Binny and Vishnu Vinod for the 5th and 6th wicket.
Post Jadhav’s dismissal, Pawan Negi and Iqbal Abdullah added a total of 15 runs for the 7th wicket and a total of 157 runs were put on the board.
Delhi Daredevils need 158 runs to win the game.
