IPL 2018: Match 48, KXIP vs RCB - Rating of the Match

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) saved their best bowling effort for this game and what an outing they had! It was all one-way traffic after the wickets of KL Rahul and Chris Gayle fell and the middle-order of Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) once again crumbled. They have been heavily dependent on their openers and other batsmen never stepped up to the task. It was the brilliance of the bowlers and the fielders of the visitors who were up for the game and have rocked the points table with a huge victory now.

Excellent Umesh (3/23)

Umesh Yadav has undoubtedly been the best bowler for RCB this year and he once again rose to the occasion tonight by picking the most important wickets. He bowled to a set plan and the batsmen were being trapped accordingly as there was no chance for the hosts to make a come back with the bat.

He would’ve struck in the very first over of the match but Parthiv Patel dropped Chris Gayle off the fourth ball of the match. But he didn’t lose short and bowled with incisive pace despite going for a couple of sixes up front. However, he was rewarded in third over of his spell and the credit should be given to the skipper Virat Kohli who gave him an extra over. He straightaway struck and removed both the openers to tilt the game in favour of his side. Also, he came back later to get the wicket of Andrew Tye and summed up the night for KXIP.

The short ball did the trick for KL Rahul as he tried to hit a flat and the deep square leg fielder Colin de Grandhomme did the rest by taking a smart catch. It was a quick delivery from Umesh which skidded on and bluffed the batsman. The next wicket was off a better bouncer as Gayle was late to go for a huge hit only to top edge. It went ever so high and was gobbled up by Mohammed Siraj again at the deep square leg. Tye threw his wicket once again to a short ball as he edged it back to the wicketkeeper and there was no looking back for RCB.

Kohli leads from the front (48* off 28)

It was a no-brainer that Virat Kohli was going to open the innings for RCB after bundling out the opposition to a meagre total of 88 runs. There was a great chance for the visitors to improve their net run-rate which they perfectly did. When Virat gets going, it is impossible to stop him which is what happened with Ankit Rajpoot. The youngster was targetted in the third over of the chase.

Rajpoot bowled the first ball full and in his shot and the man in front of him was just too good who clubbed it into the stands at cow corner. The next ball was bowled at a sheer pace again and a back of a length ball was hammered away disdainfully past the wide mid-on fielder by the Indian captain. The next boundary was even more authoritative as he charged down the ground and slapped a good length delivery over point. He had announced himself to the stage and was never going to let the chance of crushing win slip.

The fun continued as the next bowler to face the heat was Andrew Tye as the master of the chases showed some elegance as well by just placing the ball wide of the short third man fielder. The next shot was a glorious six over long on off the length delivery as the victory was brought in sight. He remained unbeaten until the end and steered his team to a huge win as the net run-rate changed dramatically for RCB.

Here’s CricTracker’s Rating of the Match: