The second innings of Match 48 was a game between Bangalore and Bangalore boys (KL Rahul & Mayank Agarwal) and yet again the Punjab openers provided a brilliant start and the middle order fails to capitalize on it as RCB goes on to win the match by 6 runs and with it qualify for the next round. Punjab doesn’t have their qualification scenarios in their hand and will be just hoping that the other results go in their favour.
RCB went unchanged in the match whereas Punjab made three changes and one of them being Harpreet Brar who got the wickets of Kohli, Maxwell, and AB de Villiers last time these two teams met.
Two contrasting phases of six overs
Winning the toss and choosing to bat, Kohli played with his attacking instinct and RCB was off to a great start by putting on 55/0 in the power play. But as the ball got a bit old, the Sharjah pitch got difficult to bat on and RCB could only manage 18 runs in the next six overs and lost 3 wickets in that phase and the score read 73/3 with Maxwell and AB de Villiers at the crease.
Harpreet gave 11 runs in 3 overs in that particular phase and it was the military medium of Moises Henriques which got the better of the RCB batsmen. He picked up all those 3 wickets and bowled an economical 4 over spell. To counter this punch from an Australian, it was another Australian in the RCB team who took on the bowlers from the 13th over and continued clearing the fence. Maxwell hit four sixes and AB de Villiers who was finding form cleared the fence 2 times. This striking by the foreign duo was one of the main reasons RCB could post 160+. Arshdeep Singh probably had his bad day in IPl and went for 42 in three overs but M.Shami did pick up three wickets in his four overs.
Middle order issues continue for PBKS
RCB before this game had not picked up a single wicket in the powerplay, and with one of the most consistent opening partnerships in Agarwal and KL Rahul, it was going to be a tough task for RCB to keep them under control. Both of them again gave a great start to Punjab with 91 in 10.5 overs and only keeping 73 runs in 9 overs for the rest of the batsmen. But Punjab’s middle order failed yet again and Pooran extended his bad form with a score of 3.
Chahal spins another web
It was Yuzvendra Chahal who broke the back of this run chase by picking up Agarwal, Pooran, and Sarfaraz. The purple cap holder Harshal Patel did not pick up a wicket today but was gave away only 27 runs in his 4 overs. He did manage to get Shahrukh Khan with a runout on the first ball of the 20th over, and probably was the winning moment for RCB. Shahrukh Khan was slightly looking dangerous with his big hits and probably did not have any fear of previous failures chasing a target down. George Garton too had a good day and went for only 27 in his four overs. Overall the RCB bowlers were able to build pressure on the Punjab batting lineup after one of the openers was dismissed.
Conclusion
Both the innings had good starts from the batsmen and when the bowl got old it was the bowler’s game and RCB had a solution to this puzzle in the form of Glen Maxwell who was awarded the Man of the Match for his brilliant innings. The result was in favor of RCB but they will be looking to have a solution for two visible problems. Firstly, to not lose momentum in the phase between the 7th and the 14th over and also start picking up wickets in the powerplay.
At the end of the match, we have 3 teams in CSK, DC, and RCB who have qualified for the playoffs, and now the fight for the 4th spot is between KKR, RR, and MI. KKR has the best net run rate, whereas MI is struggling with theirs. Also, the top three teams will be looking to continue with their momentum and finish first or second to get the advantage of qualifier 2 if anything goes wrong in qualifier 1.