RR 217/4 (20.0 Ovs)
RCB 198/6 (20.0 Ovs)
Rajasthan Royals won by 19 runs
That was a special knock by Sanju Samson, and to be honest, RR needed something like that to overpower the RCB batting might in their backyard. That's all we have from here. We're minutes away from the start of the second encounter of the day. Join us there. This is Sagar Chawla signing off on behalf of Vineet Anantharaman, Nikhil Jadhav, Hariprasad, Abhinand, Ramakrishnan and our scorer Sreenivas.
Virat Kohli: We knew exactly where it went wrong. Having 70 in 10 overs, we were going good with the ball. But giving 140-odd in the last 10 is never a good sign. The wicket was slower than what we played like. We would have loved to have 20 runs lesser to chase. But then, I have never seen a game where four batsmen have got out to half-trackers. There is a lot of belief in the side, even when we needed 85 off the last 5 overs, we had belief. That mindset is important. We had 100 in 10 overs, we were confident and if we hadn't lost two wickets in six balls, things could have been different. No ifs or buts though. First game we were on track, we had our chances today as well. Too early (in the season) to make drastic changes though.
Samson, MoM: Feel very grateful to play this tournament for two months of the year. Playing an innings like this is a dream come true. I'm feeling good, hitting the ball well. Would like to keep up the form and win as many matches as I can. Whatever my team wants me to do, I'll do it - whether it's fielding or keeping.
Rahane, RR captain: Feels good. We all know how dangerous RCB are. We were thinking of getting 160-170, wicket was a bit slow. But the way Sanju batted was incredible. It was all about getting that one big partnership. Knee is better. Slight niggle but will be fine. Shreyas bowled really well. We know when you score 200-plus, opponents will come hard. Sanju is a great talent, good to have him in our team. He's the future for India and we back him.
19:34 Local Time, 14:04 GMT, 19:34 IST: At the halfway mark of the chase, RCB seemed to be on course with Kohli going strong and de Villiers joining him at the crease. They were 100/2, completely capable of turning it on - on a Chinnaswamy pitch which had regained its reputation of being a belter. But it was a leg-spinner, as it so often is these days, who turned the game on its head. With two half-trackers, Shreyas Gopal got rid of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to strangle RCB's hopes. It would have only taken a small trip-up to derail the chase with such a huge target, and this was a lot more than that. While Mandeep and Sundar gave it a shot towards the end, this asking rate was of a different magnitude than either of them were capable of. So Rajasthan Royals are intent on reversing the trend of chasing teams winning. This is their second win in a game where they've batted first - the only two times a team batting first has won in this year's IPL.
No comments:
Post a Comment