News Analysis India

Tag: RCB

  • Virat Kohli’s RCB faces Eoin Morgan’s KKR in IPL Eliminator 

    By PTI

    SHARJAH: It will be a test of Virat Kohli’s tactical acumen against the ice-cool demeanour of Eoin Morgan when perennial underachievers Royal Challengers Bangalore clash with former champions Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL Eliminator here on Monday.

    Kohli, who has decided to step down from captaincy after this edition, has led RCB to the finals in 2016 besides reaching the play-offs twice in 2015 and 2020, and he would like to end things on a high in his last hurray as captain.

    For Morgan, it is about regaining the lost glory for KKR, a team that achieved great success under Gautam Gambhir, who had led them to two IPL titles in a space of three years in 2012 and 2014.

    On paper, it would be a battle between two evenly-poised teams, but overall, KKR has a slight edge, having won 15 out of 28 matches they played over the years.

    However, RCB will be brimming with confidence after securing a thrilling win over Delhi Capitals with a last-ball six in their final league match, finishing third in the standings with 18 points from 14 matches.

    KKR, on the other hand, scripted a terrific turnaround, finishing fourth with 14 points after winning five of seven games in the UAE leg following a lacklustre performance in the first phase.

    Morgan’s men had notched up a massive 86-run win over Rajasthan Royals to seal their play-offs spot and would look to carry the momentum into the Eliminator.

    But past records will count for little and it will boil down to winning small moments in the match, something which Kohli and Morgan would know pretty well.

    Both the captains have enough ammunition in their disposal and it will be all about managing the resources.

    RCB possess a formidable batting line-up that includes AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell and Devdutt Padikkal apart from Kohli but they have failed to find a perfect combination so far.

    While their top-order has given starts on most occasions, the middle-order looked unsure with the ploy to get Daniel Christian at number 3 backfiring.

    Also AB de Villiers has been wasted at number 5 but Srikar Bharat’s emergence has been a big positive.

    The wicketkeeper batsman scored a 52-ball 78 at number 3 and etched his name in the record books with a last-ball six for RCB in the last game.

    One man who has stood out for RCB is Glenn Maxwell.

    The Australian power-hitter has 498 runs and has been Kohli’s go to man this season.

    The RCB skipper, however, has misfired in the last two innings and would need to find his touch quickly.

    In bowling, Harshal Patel has been simply sensational with 30 wickets in 14 games, which includes a hat-trick against Mumbai Indians.

    Mohammed Siraj and George Garton too have been impressive, while Yuzvendra Chahal has answered his critics with 16 wickets this season.

    KKR too has been served well by the bowlers, who has churned out some terrific performances.

    While pace duo of Lockie Ferguson and Shivam Mavi have peaked at the right time, sharing seven wickets in their last match, the spinners led by Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and Shakib Al Hasan too have been impressive.

    In batting, Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahul Tripathi and Nitish Rana hold the key and it will be interesting to see how they handle the variations of Patel and guile of Chahal at the slow Sharjah pitch.

    Skipper Morgan has been woefully out of form and that remains a concern.

    Teams | Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (C), Navdeep Saini, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Rajat Patidar, Dushmantha Chameera, Pavan Deshpande, Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Sachin Baby, Wanindu Hasaranga, George Garton, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shahbaz Ahmed, Devdutt Padikkal, Kyle Jamieson, Suyash Prabhudessai, KS Bharat, Tim David, Akash Deep, AB de Villiers.

    Kolkata Knight Riders: Eoin Morgan (C), Dinesh Karthik, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Karun Nair, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathy, Shubman Gill, Harbhajan Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Pawan Negi, M Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Dube, Tim Southee, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russel, Ben Cutting, Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Sheldon Jackson, Tim Seifert.

  • RCB captain Kohli wins toss, elects to bowl against Delhi Capitals

    By PTI

    DUBAI: Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl against Delhi Capitals in their Indian Premier League game here on Friday.

    RCB remained unchanged for the game as did Delhi Capitals from their last match against Chennai Super Kings.

    Teams: Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), Devdutt Padikkal, K S Bharat, AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Harshal Patel, George Garton, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shahbaz Ahmed, Md Siraj.

    Delhi Capitals: Rishabh Pant (captain), Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Ripal Patel, Shimron Hetmyar, Shreyas Iyer, R Ashwin, Anrich Nortje, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Kagiso Rabada.

  • IPL 2021: RCB beat DC by 7 wickets

    By PTI

    DUBAI: Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Delhi Capitals by seven wickets in their Indian Premier League match here on Friday after a last-ball six by Srikar Bharat.

    Bharat remained unbeaten on 78 off 52 balls while Glenn Maxwell made 51 off 33 as RCB chased down DC’s target of 165 in a thrilling last-ball finish.

    Delhi Capitals scored 164 for five.

    Sent into bat, DC were off to a flying start with openers Shikar Dhawan (43) and Prithvi Shaw (48) putting on 88 runs in just 10.1 overs.

    Shimron Hetmyer got out off the last ball of the innings after scoring 29 off 22 balls.

    Brief scores: Delhi Capitals: 164/5 in 20 overs (Prithvi Shaw 48, Shikhar Dhawan 43; Mohammed Siraj 2/25).

    Royal Challengers Bangalore: 166/3 in 20 overs (Srikar Bharat 78, Glenn Maxwell 51; Anrich Nortje 2/24).

  • We cannot take our foot off the pedal: Delhi Capitals pacer Kagiso Rabada ahead of RCB clash

    By PTI

    DUBAI: Delhi Capitals pacer Kagiso Rabada says his team cannot afford to take its foot off the pedal as it enters the business end of the IPL in pursuit of a maiden title.

    Leading the pecking order with 20 points from 13 games, DC are already through to the play-offs and will take on another qualified side Royal Challengers Bangalore in their last round-robin match.

    “We’ve given ourselves another chance to play for a spot in the final, so we are thrilled by that. Even though the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore doesn’t hold a lot of significance for us we should not take our foot off the pedal. We should just keep playing the way we have been playing,” said the South African.

    “We’ve done really great work so far. We have earned the right to be in this position and we have been in this position before, which helps. We are going to give it our all in the upcoming matches and look to play our best cricket in the business end of the tournament.”

    Rabada said the loss against RCB in the first half of the tournament will not bother the team much.

    “Our loss against RCB in the first half of the tournament is definitely a thing of the past. However, we know how threatening they can be. They have some really destructive batters and Harshal Patel has been doing extremely well.

    “We need to believe in our strengths. The result in our last match against RCB is a thing of the past, but we still need to learn from that result.”

    Rabada found himself in a rather unusual situation in DC’s last match against the Chennai Super Kings when he needed to close out the match with the bat and he got his side home with a boundary.

    “It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but I backed myself to put the team in a winning position when we needed 2 runs from 3 balls, by at least getting (Shimron) Hetmyer on strike.

    “I tried to watch the ball and anticipate where (Dwayne) Bravo was going to bowl. I just wanted to get bat on ball and that worked for us.”

  • How on earth does RCB always leave AB de Villiers to try and perform miracles, asks Dale Steyn

    By ANI

    NEW DELHI: Former South Africa pacer Dale Steyn has said he finds it difficult to understand why Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) leave AB de Villiers to do too much in the backend of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

    A spirited bowling performance saw Kane Williamson-led SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) defeat RCB by four runs at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Wednesday. Bhuvneshwar Kumar defended 13 off the final over against AB de Villiers to help his side register a thrilling victory.

    “I get they’ve qualified, but how on earth does RCB always leave AB to try and perform miracles,” tweeted Steyn. AB de Villiers walked out to bat in the 15th over of the innings and RCB still needed 50 runs to win off 35 balls. In the end, the Proteas batter remained unbeaten on 19 off 13 balls but he failed to take his side over the line.

    Earlier, Jason Roy played a knock of 44 runs as SRH posted a total of 141/7 in the allotted twenty overs. For RCB, Harshal Patel returned with the figures of 3-33.

    RCB will next take on Delhi Capitals on Friday at the Dubai International Stadium.

  • Was trying to bowl wide yorkers to AB de Villiers: SRH pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar

    By ANI

    ABU DHABI: SunRisers Hyderabad pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar said that his plan was to bowl wide yorkers to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batter AB de Villiers in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 encounter.

    A spirited bowling performance saw Kane Williamson-led SRH defeat RCB by four runs here at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Wednesday. Bhuvneshwar Kumar defended 13 off the final over to help his side register a thrilling victory.

    “The hand is fine. I got hit thrice after I dropped a catch as well. When AB bats, I was thinking about the process. I was trying to bowl wide yorkers,” Bhuvneshwar told host broadcaster Star Sports after the game ended.

    “I bowled a yorker at the stumps and got hit for a six and then again went back to wide yorkers. If you look at the score at three venues it hasn’t been much. We did think we were 10-15 short though,” he added.

    SRH pacer Umran Malik clocked 153kph to bowl the fastest delivery of IPL 2021 against RCB. Malik achieved this feat on the 4th delivery of the 9th over against Devdutt Padikkal. The RCB batter got an outside edge and scored a run on the fastest delivery of IPL 2021.

    Earlier, Jason Roy played a knock of 44 runs as SRH posted a total of 141/7 in the allotted twenty overs. For RCB, Harshal Patel returned with the figures of 3-33.

    SunRisers Hyderabad will next take on Mumbai Indians on Friday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

  • Kohli wins toss, elects to bowl against laggards SRH

    By PTI

    ABU DHABI: Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl against SunRisers Hyderabad in their IPL match here on Wednesday.

    RCB, who are eyeing the second place in the points table, are going unchanged.

    Kohli feels the wicket will play better in the latter half of the match.

    Already eliminated from the Play-offs race, the struggling SRH are also playing the same playing XI that competed in their last match.

    Teams: Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (C), Devdutt Paddikal, Srikar Bharat, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Dan Christian, Shahbaz Ahmed, George Garton, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal and Mohammed Siraj.

    Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (C), Jason Roy, Wriddhiman Saha, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul and Umran Malik.

  • SRH set RCB 142-run target

    By PTI

    ABU DHABI: Royal Challengers Bangalore restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to a modest 141 for seven in their Indian Premier League match here on Wednesday.

    Opener Jason Roy (44) and skipper Kane Williamson (31) resisted the RCB attack with fighting knocks while Jason Holder (16) played a useful cameo down the batting order.

    Harshal Patel (3/33) and Dan Christian (2/14) shared five wickets between them for SRH.

    Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad: 141 for 7 in 20 overs (Jason Roy 44, Kane Williamson 31; Harshal Patel 3/33, Dan Christian 2/14).

  • IPL 2021: SRH seal a narrow four-run win over RCB

    By IANS

    ABU DHABI: Sunrisers Hyderabad sealed a narrow four-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Match 52 of the IPL 2021 at Sheikh Zayed Stadium here on Wednesday. Hyderabad defended 142 against a Bangalore batting line-up which threatened briefly to chase down the target.

    Bangalore were given an early jolt with Bhuvneshwar Kumar trapping Virat Kohli in front with an incoming delivery in the first over. Daniel Christian’s promotion to three backfired as he chipped a catch to mid-off off Siddarth Kaul. KS Bharat slammed two boundaries before falling to gloving behind off Umran Malik in the seventh over.

    Rashid Khan’s first ball to Glenn Maxwell was hoicked over deep mid-wicket in the eighth over. When Khan returned for his next over, Maxwell took on him again, slog-sweeping over long-on for a six followed by a wristy sweep through deep mid-wicket. In between, Malik was beating Maxwell for pace.

    Maxwell’s partnership of 54 with Devdutt Padikkal ended in the 15th over as a direct hit from a sliding Kane Williamson at cover caught the right-hander short of his crease while taking a quick single. Padikkal’s painstaking struggle to break free ended when he holed out to deep mid-wicket off Khan in the 17th over.

    Shahbaz Ahmed took eleven off Malik in the 18th over, including two boundaries, to bring the equation to 18 runs in the last two overs. Ahmed was dropped by Kumar at long-on in the start of the 19th over but pulled straight to mid-wicket on the fourth ball off Jason Holder.

    With 13 needed off the final over, AB de Villiers slammed a six straight down the ground off Kumar. But Kumar conceded just one run off the final ball to give Hyderabad a slim win.

    Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 141/7 in 20 overs (Jason Roy 44, Kane Williamson 31, Harshal Patel 3/33, Daniel Christian 2/14) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 137/6 in 20 overs (Devdutt Padikkal 41, Glenn Maxwell 40, Umran Malik 1/21, Siddarth Kaul 1/24) by four runs.

  • Virat Kohli told me to bowl dot balls rather than look for wickets in middle overs: RCB spinner Yuzvendra Chahal

    By ANI

    SHARJAH: Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has revealed that skipper Virat Kohli told him to bowl dot balls rather than look for wickets in the middle overs phase in an Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter against the Punjab Kings.

    Glenn Maxwell’s knock of 57 runs off just 33 balls helped RCB defeat Punjab Kings by 6 runs at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday. With this win, Kohli’s side sealed its qualification for the playoffs.

    “I backed myself and bowled according to my strength, just that I varied my length. On this wicket 160 was a good score. Virat Kohli told me not to go for wickets in the middle overs, he told me to bowl dot balls. Agarwal is a great batsman, I love to bowl against him, it’s challenging,” Chahal told host broadcaster Star Sports after the game ended.

    “My focus was not to bowl any loose balls. We had good momentum in the first half. The way we have bounced back after first couple of games in the UAE, it is all because of unity in our team,” he added.

    Maxwell’s firing fifty was followed by a spirited bowling performance by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) as they defeated Punjab Kings (PBKS).

    For RCB, Yuzvendra Chahal scalped two wickets while Shahbaz Ahmed and George Garton returned with one piece. Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul scored innings of 57 and 39 respectively for Punjab.

    RCB will next square off against SunRisers Hyderabad at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.