IPL 2015 - RCB register an easy win over RR

IPL 2015 – RCB register an easy win over RR: Coming after losing 3 consecutive games at home, the Royal Challengers Bangalore turned out to be too good against the cursing Rajasthan Royals at Ahmedabad. It was the Bangalore’s bowling which gave the visitors a huge upper hand in the game before they chased down the low target losing just a wicket.

In the chase of Rajasthan Royals’ 130, Chris Gayle began in his own way smashing a six and couple of fours in 3rd over bowled by Morris. However, his stay didn’t last long as Shane Watson got rid of the huge man for 20 with a slower delivery.

But Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers were too tough for the Rajasthan Royals’ variety bowling to stop. De Villiers began with smashing a couple of fours to Faulkner. Kohli struck a huge hit to Tambe as the RCB kept the board ticking. Despite of boundaries coming was almost dried up, the rotation between wickets by these two top class batsmen didn’t allow the run rate to drop under 8.

After de Villiers struck couple of fours in 9th over bowled by Tambe, the wait for next boundary went till 14th over when Kohli lofted Watson over his head. Soon he brought up his second consecutive fifty in 39 balls. They didn’t took much time after that as de Villiers with a four off 17th over, finished off the game with 23 balls to spare.

Earlier, after winning the toss RCB decided to put RR into bat. Rahane and Watson looked like continuing their form as they were striking the ball very well. Especially Rahane, the Orange cap holder in present season was a great touch hitting a six and two fours before been trapped in-front by Harshal Patel.

Watson capitalized Yuzvendra Chahal’s flight off the ball by smashing a six and four before holing out at long -on. Chahal got struck by ball in his hand on the first ball of 10th over, which was completed by Virat Kohli. The over actually produced a wicket as Karun Nair got run-out unnecessarily on the over’s last ball.

Iqbal Abdulla cleaned up Deepak Hooda cheaply in the 12th over and Chahal on his return in the 13th over seen the set back of Sanju Samson. Smith and Binny looked like taking Rajasthan towards 150 only till Starc got the both batsmen in the 18th over for 31 and 20 respectively. Faulkner got out to Wiese in penultimate over and Starc picked up his third wicket by cleaning up Kulkarni in the last over as the hosts ended on 130 for 9 in their 20 overs.

Brief Scores:

Rajasthan Royals 130 for 9 (Mitchell Starc 3/22, Harshal Patel 2/23) lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore 134 for 1 (Virat Kohli 62*, AB de Villiers 47*)

Stats:

Dinesh Karthik went past Adam Gilchrist and MS Dhoni in most dismissals as Keeper in IPL to top the list with 70 dismissals.

Karthik now has 50 catches behind stumps, 2nd most after Gilchrist’s 51.

Mitchell Starc recorded his best figures in IPL with 3 for 22 over hauling his previous best of 2 for 21.

Virat Kohli scored his 18th fifty in IPL, the sixth most fifties for a batsman in IPL.

Kohli, with 2817 runs now stands at 5th in most run scorers list for IPL.

With 323 runs in this IPL season, Ajinkya Rahane holds the Orange cap for been most run scorer in this edition.