Hello and a warm welcome to yet another blog on the daily match reviews of this year’s IPL. I will cover the game between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Chennai Super Kings at the Chinnaswamy, which turned out to be a historic day in the history of the IPL and RCB had to win on demand by 18 runs or more to qualify. So let’s get started!
Ruturaj Gaikwad won a rare toss and opted to field first mainly because of the weather. Faf and Kohli started well, rain interrupted after 3 overs and then they played slowly as the ball was spinning crazy, but still kept the intent. Some superb knocks from Patidar and Green, followed by quick cameos from Maxwell and DK gave RCB 218, effectively giving CSK a target of 201. Ruturaj fell for a golden duck and soon followed Mitchell, but Ravindra and Rahane played a fine partnership before the RCB bowlers threw punches at CSK by getting important wickets. Then came the last hope of CSK, Jadeja and Dhoni, who almost pulled it off but Dayal held his nerve and gave RCB a big victory of 27 runs and a place in the playoffs.
In another RCB CSK thriller, RCB had everything against them even before the game, as they needed to win by 18 or more runs, a rain threat and to make matters worse, Faf lost the toss and we were put on to bat. After all this, the rain affected the pitch as it turned just too much for the spinners and looked like 160-170 would be a good score but the intent from our batters, right from the KKR match at Eden, gave us that 218. CSK should have chased 201 to qualify even though Ruturaj and Mitchell fell as the pitch was a belter throughout their innings. And when Rahane also fell, CSK were comfortably placed to quality with the rate of about 11 an over with a deep batting line-up…
Here comes the first difference, which is Dube, who should have sacrificed his wickets instead of Ravindra as he was the set batter and he played a 7 ball 15 as RCB with a simple plan of bowling pace-on to Dube worked wonders and brought us back in the game.
While Jadeja and Dhoni started picking the boundaries and gave some hope for CSK, needing 17 off the last 6, Dhoni hit a huge six, depositing the ball I guess outside the stadium complex. But this was the second difference, but the most important difference because the ball was wet maybe because the outfield was not completely dry after some downpour and the umpires refused to change the ball for whatever reason, so it was not possible to grip the ball while bowling a pace-off delivery. But since now the ball had to be changed, Dayal smartly bowled a slower ball and got the wicket of Dhoni and the next 4 balls just went for a solitary single as RCB, being placed at 10th for 3/4 of the season, in a matter of 2 weeks, qualified for the playoffs even though almost every scenario going against them.
The start of this impossible journey was at Eden when we lost just by a run, but that game we played as a whole unit and with intent, something which we didn’t do in our first 7 matches. But we just carried that process and Kohli got enough support from Jacks, Patidar, Faf and Green who were outstanding with the bat and helped Kohli ease all the pressure off his shoulders and play with a free mind. For CSK, they would still be wondering how they lost this game considering the amount of scenarios favouring them. This was their worst performance but will it be “definitely not” an end for Dhoni? Only time will tell but we do give some more games for our finisher, DK, who has been such a key player to this side and his valuable inputs for the bowlers from behind the stumps did help them. So, a memorable day for me and all the RCB fans as we turned the impossible into possible, mainly because of the belief we had but still won’t be satisfied as we want to go the distance after 17 years….