TheSportsCampus

The Royal Challengers Bangalore made a very welcome return in front of an appreciative home crowd on Friday night after a 10-day Bharat Yatra. The last game scheduled in Bangalore was washed out and the home fans have been feeling rather desperate to have something to cheer about. The Royal Challengers, after sweating near the bottom of the League a couple of matches ago, have risen near the upper echelons since Chris Gayle's reintroduction onto the scene. In sharp contrast the Pune Warriors started on a high but came into this game on the back of a 4 match losing streak.

Yuvraj Singh won the toss and decided to bowl on a track that had a bit of grass on it. The Pune Warriors made two changes to their side bringing in the left arm slinger Kamran Khan, who played for Rajasthan last season and Tim Paine strengthened their batting line-up coming in for the allrounder Mitchell Marsh. Bangalore made just the one change, a force one as Mohammad Kaif replaced an ill Cheteshwar Pujara.

Bangalore had a quiet start scoring just 8 runs in the first two overs but then Chris Gayle took the attack to Kamran Khan hitting him for 2 sixes and 2 fours in a single over. Tillakaratne Dilshan didn’t take any chances and kept rotating the strike to let Gayle do the hitting. Alfonso Thomas bowled two good overs in the powerplay conceding just 6 and things settled down for a bit. But there was much more for the jam-packed crowd to cheer about as Gayle took on Kamran once again smashing two back to back sixes this time. Bangalore had scored 57 runs by the end of the powerplay and Kamran Khan had given away 37 of those in his 2 overs.

The strategic time-out was taken straight away and Pune struck right after when leggie Rahul Sharma got through Dilshan’s defences to give Pune the breakthrough. Dilshan scored 15 off 19 balls. Virat Kohli came to the crease and escaped a run-out chance when he was just on 7. Rahul Sharma, who has bowled with tremendous control right through the IPL, has also made a habit of picking up big wickets dismissing Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni already this season. He added another big scalp to his trophy collection when he rattled Gayle’s stumps when he was on 49 and Pune were right back into the game. AB de Villiers joined Kohli in the middle and they had some rebuilding to do. Kohli took toll of a dejected Kamran Khan as he cleared the ropes for the first time this evening. Kamran Khan had conceded 47 runs in his three overs which were exactly half of the total runs scored after 12 overs. A couple of good overs from Pune left Bangalore at 104 for 2 at the end of 14 overs as the second time-out was taken.

The stage was set for the batting side to launch an attack and Kohli led the way depositing the wicket-taker, Rahul Sharma, in the crowd and followed it up with two beautiful drives off Jesse Ryder. De Villiers joined Kohli in the onslaught and hit one of the biggest sixes of the tournament which nearly cleared the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Kohli reached his 50 off just 36 balls and had the responsibility to take his team to a huge total. Kohli went past the 1000 run mark in IPL with another six, this time off his legs. The next ball flew off his bat’s edge and out of the park too. Saurabh Tiwary, who came out to replace a fallen De Villiers (26), muscled a six to add a third to Jerome Taylor’s over. The West Indian's over was the biggest of the night adding 24 to Bangalore’s total. Kohli got out for 67 off just 42 balls when he holed out in the deep, Thomas ending his spell conceding just 23 and picking up the wickets of Kohli and De Villiers. Just 6 came off the last over but Bangalore would have been very content with their score of 181, an extremely formidable total.

Zaheer Khan had the new ball and got into the scheme of things pretty quickly. Sreenath Aravind too started well from the other end and it was Zaheer who came in for some early stick with Jesse Ryder helping himself to 14 in an over. Tim Paine, on the other hand, was lucky to be adjudged not-out when all the Bangalore players went up for an under-edge. Paine’s struggle in the middle ended when he found Vettori trying to clear the in-field. He scored just 8 runs off 17 balls. Pune Warriors couldn’t make much use of the fielding restrictions as they scored just 42 runs in the powerplay. The required rate had crept up to 10 and the visitors needed to get on with it to stay in the game.

Manish Pandey joined Ryder and Pune would have expected a lot out of him as he had played a lot at this ground last season. But Pandey found it difficult in the middle as the run rate swelled. Runs dried up and Pune needed some big hits badly. Pune reached just 63 by the end of 10 overs and they needed to score 119 in the last 10, a very tall ask. Ryder cut loose and smashed Abhimanyu Mithun out of the park. He reached his 50 off just 31 balls but Pandey wasn’t scoring as quickly at the other end. Ryder fell soon after getting to his half-century, trying to clear the ropes one more time.

Yuvraj Singh was in and needed to get going straight away, which he did, but the required rate was cimbing rapidly. Yuvraj hit a length ball from Vettori into the crowd to get his first maximum. Pandey’s dismal innings came to an end for 19 off 23 balls when he hit the ball straight down long-off’s throat.

Pune needed 81 off the last 6 overs and had their two most potent hitters in Yuvraj and Uthappa to do it. Yuvraj took on the left-arm spinner Syed Mohammad, bludgeoning him for two huge sixes which clearly stated that the match was far from over. But Zaheer Khan came back into the attack and got rid of the Pune skipper for a well made 41 off just 23 balls. After Yuvraj was gone it was curtains for Pune as they struggled to find the boundary. Mithun Manhas perished for the cause as the target was beyond reach. Uthappa finished the last over on a high smashing Aravind for 17 runs but it could only help them decrease the victory margin. Pune Warriors fell short by 26 runs as Uthappa remained unbeaten on 23 off 17 balls.

Pune Warriors have lost their 5^th consecutive match and will be feeling the heat having won just 2. They are in the same boat as the Delhi Daredevils and with 8 wins seeming like the cut-off for the second stage of the IPL, they can practically kiss this season goodbye. Pune were guilty of throwing their wickets away too early in the last few games and on this occasion they over compromised, playing it too safe while chasing a considerably high score. They need to re-evaluate their approach to the game, keeping their two best players back down the order when they should really try to get them to face as many balls as possible. Their attempt at achieveing the impossible begins in Fortress Jaipur where they play the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday.

Bangalore in sharp contrast have been mesmerized by the Chris Gayle effect. The once strugglers can’t stop winning and will put that meantality to the test when they entertain the Kings XI Punjab next Friday.

Teams:

Bangalore Royal Challengers: Chris Gayle, Tillakratne Dilshan, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers(wk), Saurabh Tiwary, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Daniel Vettori(c), Sreenath Aravind, Syed Mohammad, Abhimanyu Mithun

Pune Warriors: Jesse Ryder, Tim Paine(wk), Mohnish Mishra, Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh(c), Rahul Sharma, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas, Kamran Khan

Mini Scorecard

Royal Challengers Bangalore 181/5 (20 overs, 9.05rpo)
V Kohli 67(42) A Thomas 2-23
C Gayle 49(26) R Sharma 2-27

Pune Warriors 155/5 (20 overs, 7.75rpo)
J Ryder 51(34) C Gayle 1-8
Y Singh 41(23) D Vettori 1-23

Royal Challengers win by 26 runs