After going through several humiliations in past two games, the Royal Challengers Bangalore tried really hard to sweep off the game against the Gujarat Lions (GL) on April 27 but thanx to Aaron Finch’s half-century which stormed Gujarat to victory by 7 wickets. The Bangalore batting line-up miserably failed to score once again in the first innings and couldn’t put a good score on the scoreboard. As a result, Gujarat found it too easy to finish the game with 37 balls to spare. GL’s fast bowler Andrew Tye was awarded the Man of the Match for his phenomenal spell of 4 overs where he conceded just 12 runs and took 3 wickets.
Following the tradition of this tournament, Suresh Raina elected to bowl first and invited Virat Kohli and Co. to bat first. Once again the batsmen couldn’t perform up to the mark and managed to set a target of 135 runs for Gujarat to chase.
For a change, Indian youngster Ishan Kishan came to open the inning with Brendon McCullum and the new combo worked well. Gujarat had a fiery start as Kishan score 16 runs off 11 balls and all came off through boundaries. This amazing knock however ended soon as Samuel Badree dismissed him in the 3rd over. After adding 23 total runs on the scoreboard, Badree hit again and dismissed McCullum for just 3 runs off 6 balls.
After these two blows, there were skipper Suresh Raina along with Aaron Finch at the crease and they needed 111 runs off 95 balls. Right from that moment, Finch took the charge and started punishing the bowlers brutally while Raina played slow but yet strong. The fifth over bowled by Samuel Badree turned the game upside down and pushed it towards Gujarat. Finch furiously hit back-to-back two sixes and took 15 runs from it.
From one end, the runs were getting added up to the scoreboard while from another, a good partnership was brewing up.
After hitting 6 sixes and 5 fours, Finch scored 72 runs off 32 balls and brought up another half-century in this tournament. Unfortunately, he was dismissed by Pawan Negi while trying for another biggie and was caught by AB de Villiers at the deep.
This loss didn’t affect Gujarat much as they needed as they needed just 20 runs then. Raina continued his voyage of scoring runs and finally took the match away by 7 wickets and marked their 3rd victory in the tournament.
For interesting sports videos from InUth, follow us on
Youtube.com/InUthdotcom
