(ESPN) It started so well for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), then for 15-odd overs, it didn’t. Then it suddenly started going to plan again and the RCB loyalists, who had packed the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to the rafters, found their voice. Only to have local lad KL Rahul silence them.
In a game with a fair share of twists and turns, Delhi Capitals (DC) continued their unbeaten run, notching up a fourth straight win of the season, handing RCB a second home defeat by six wickets.
Sent into bat, it was a bizarre RCB innings. They scored 53 runs in the first three overs for zero wickets, 36 in the last two for zero wickets, and in the 15 overs in the middle could only manage 74 runs while losing seven wickets.
Having restricted RCB to 163 for 7, DC would have been the happier side going into the break. But their joy was short-lived as RCB picked up three wickets inside the powerplay and had DC struggling at 67 for 4 after 11 overs.
The required rate which began at a shade over eight an over was almost touching 11 at this stage. But Rahul flicked a switch and alongside Tristan Stubbs began DC’s victory march. The duo scorched 102 runs in the next 6.5 overs, adding 111 for the fifth wicket as DC romped home with 13 balls to spare. Rahul finished with an unbeaten 93 off just 53 balls and celebrated in fitting fashion in front of his home crowd.
He was on 29 off 29 balls, struggling with his timing, looking sluggish on a sticky Chinnaswamy surface. He even had a life on 7 when Patidar dropped a tough catch running back from mid-off. And, Rahul made sure to cash in. By the time 11 overs were done, ESPNcricinfo’s win probability for DC had dipped to 14.31% from 67.45% at the start of their innings. Then, Rahul sent the RCB bowlers into hiding.
It started with a cheeky reverse-sweep by Stubbs off Krunal Pandya, which beat short third. Rahul then dumped him over deep backward square leg and that was the start of the end for RCB. He went 4 and 6 against Liam Livingstone before taking down Josh Hazlewood in a fierce display of ball-striking.
With DC requiring 65 off 36, he first smashed the pacer for back-to-back fours before thumping him for a 4 and 6 in an over which went for 22. That brought down the equation to 43 off 30. Stubbs deposited Suyash Sharma for a four and six and before Rahul finished off the game smashing Dayal for two sixes and a four in the 18th over. He smashed a six over fine leg fence to seal the win and then slammed his bat on to the turf, almost marking his territory. Striking at 100 in his first 29 balls, he thrashed 64 off his next 24, at a strike rate of 266.67. This truly is Rahul’s ground, isn’t it?
Before Rahul’s onslaught, DC’s chase was going nowhere. They both Faf du Plessis and Jake Fraser-McGurk inside two overs. Du Plessis first miscued Dayal to Patidar at mid-off before Fraser-McGurk’s lukewarm season continued as he top-edged Bhuvneshwar Kumar straight up with Jitesh Sharma taking a catch after a bobble. Abhishek Porel became Bhuvneshwar’s second victim as DC slipped to 39 for 3 inside the powerplay, which soon became 58 for 4 in the ninth over. As it turned out, that was the last speck of happiness for RCB.
When RCB were sent into bat, it seemed like Phil Salt had just one agenda on his mind: to tonk every ball he saw out of the park. And he succeeded for a while as the Chinnaswamy crowd went berserk. He wreaked havoc in the first three overs, with his takedown of Mitchell Starc being the highlight of the evening. Salt smoked him for three fours and two sixes in the third over of the innings, which went for 30. The ball flew everywhere; over point, over mid-on, over the wicketkeeper’s head and RCB crossed the 50-run mark in three overs. This was RCB’s second-quickest team fifty of all time in the IPL.
Then it all went downhill for a while.
Salt smashed an Axar length ball to extra cover and charged off. Virat Kohli responded initially, only to backtrack and Salt was run out by a distance.
Vipraj Nigam then conceded just two runs in his first over with Devdutt Padikkal clearly struggling. He was put out of his misery by Mukesh Kumar whose slower offcutter did the trick as Padikkal fell for 1 off 8. Mukesh’s first over, the sixth of the innings turned out to be a maiden wicket with RCB managing 64 in the powerplay.
The M Chinnaswamy surface is often known as a spinners’ graveyard. Only Kuldeep Yadav and Nigam did not get the memo. The spin twins put on a spin strangle and the RCB batters had no answers. After Nigam’s two-run over in the powerplay, Kohli broke the shackles and went for six over long-on but the leggie kept his composure. He gave the ball enough air and Kohli looking to go inside-out only managed to slice it as far as Starc who took a good catch running from long-off.
Mohit Sharma then got rid of Livingstone before Kuldeep sent back Jitesh, who was done in by a wrong’un. He then sent Patidar packing too while Nigam had Krunal as RCB lost the plot completely to slip to 125 for 7 in 17.1 overs. The duo finished with combined figures of 8-0-35-4, bowling a total of 23 dot balls in their spell.
That RCB even reached 163 was down to Tim David’s late bash where he smashed four sixes and two fours in the last two overs to finish unbeaten on 37 of 20 balls. It seemed they were a touch short mid-innings, and Rahul made sure RCB were kept winless at home in IPL 2025.
