IPL 2019: Match 42, RCB vs KXIP - Who Said What

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have done a double over the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP). They once again defeated KXIP, this time at home, by 17 runs defending 202 runs on a flat pitch. AB de Villiers and Marcus Stoinis batted brilliantly first and then the bowlers literally put on a show in the last four overs. RCB bowled their best of the season at the death on the day as they have finally climbed to the seventh position in the points table.

Earlier, Parthiv Patel got the team off to a quick-fire start despite Virat Kohli falling early. His 24-ball 43-run knock helped RCB score 70 runs in the powerplay. But Akshdeep Nath and Moeen Ali getting out ordinarily didn’t help the team’s cause. At 81/4, things looked bleak for them. AB de Villiers and Stoinis had to rebuild and during that phase, the run-rate came down drastically.

But the duo was set in the last few overs to affect a carnage literally to the KXIP bowlers. De Villiers, especially, targetted the opposition bowlers to bring his 360-degree game to the fore. One of his single-handed shots went out of the ground for a 95-metre six. He remained unbeaten on 82 off just 44 balls in the end even as Stoinis got into the action in the final over where RCB added 27 runs to go past the 200-run mark.

KXIP choke in the end

Chris Gayle and KL Rahul got the team off to a superb start once again. But the former was trapped superbly by Umesh Yadav. Having said that, the runs came easily with every batsman coming and hitting sixes at will. Rahul was looking special on the day but he was undone by Moeen Ali after which the run-rate dipped alarmingly.

Nicholas Pooran, however, smacked Washington Sundar for three consecutive sixes to make the equation comparatively and with 47 needing in the four overs, the scales were heavily in the favour of KXIP. But it wasn’t to be. RCB bowled superbly at the death for the first time to clinch victory by 17 runs.

Man of the Match, AB de Villiers said:

I tried to stay calm in the last few overs. We know our home ground very well and we are doing things well now. We are doing good as a team now. I still think 160 was a par score but it gets easier in the second innings.

Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper, Virat Kohli said:

We won 4 out of last 5 could have been 5 out of 5. We are just looking to enjoy. The partnership of ABD and Stoinis changed the match for us. Our only focus was to play good as a team, losing 6 in a row hurt all of us. That big break before Mohali helped us.

It is important that we don’t take any pressure. When two-left handers came in, we got a lot of dot balls and that helped us. It was an outstanding effort by the bowlers.

Kings XI Punjab skipper, Ravi Ashwin said:

There can be so many places where I thought we lost the game, but honestly in a T20 game it’s all about winning those pressure moments which we have not been able to win in the last few games. If we had actually held onto those crunch moments, we might have had a couple of more points or probably four points but that’s that, we weren’t able to close it out and we got some experience in the middle order couldn’t really close it out in the crucial moments today.

It’s all about getting one win together and we can get on a roll like RCB won three in a row now, so it’s all about getting one win and then we go back home and then we probably try to win a couple on the trot. It’s very important to keep trust in the players.

We held onto giving players enough opportunities to try and come out on trumps. It’s important to back the players. In all the eleven games we played to be brutally honest, we haven’t been outplayed by any opposition which is a great positive for us. The one area we could really work on is the powerplay and the back-end finishing.

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