IPL 2020: Virat Kohli sledges Manish Pandey; SRH batsman gives it back in style

The eliminator of the ongoing 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) witnessed a nail-biting affair as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 6 wickets at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi to keep themselves alive in the competition. SRH will next lock horns with an extremely hurt Delhi Capitals (DC) in the 2nd Qualifier on November 8 to fight for a place in the finals against Mumbai Indians (MI).

Batting first, RCB had a horrible start as they lost their new opening pair of Virat Kohli and Devdutt Paddikal within the first 4 overs. AB de Villiers held his fort on one side as he smashed 56 runs off 43 deliveries but the other batsmen struggled to get going as the Orange Army gave a display for their lethal bowling attack. As a result, Virat Kohli & Co. had to settle with a below-par total of 131 runs for 7 wickets in their 20 overs.

Jason Holder was the pick of the bowlers for Hyderabad as he named three wickets while T Natarajan also took two prized wickets of De Villiers and Washington Sundar. Other bowlers including Rashid Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem and Sandeep Sharma were also economical as they stemmed the run-flow in the middle overs.

Virat Kohli sledges Manish Pandey

Chasing 132 was an easy task for SRH. Therefore, the Bangalore outfit was in a desperate need of wickets to shift the momentum towards their side. Mohammed Siraj gave the first breakthrough to RCB by sending the opener Shreevats Goswami back to the pavilion in the first over of the evening.

In the third over, the on-crease batsman Manish Pandey, who came in as a one-down batsman, played solid defence in the second delivery bowled by Siraj. Virat who fielded the ball tried to sledge the batsman to make him play a bad shot.

While giving the ball back to Siraj, Kohli shouted, “Aaj nahi marega shot” which means “He won’t hit any shot today”. However, the trick didn’t work as Pandey hit a blistering six after the gap of one delivery to give an appropriate reply to the opposition skipper.

Bangalore’s bowling unit gave a tough time to SRH, but Kane Williamson emerged as a match-winner for his team as he helped them chase the target with two balls remaining and cement a place in the 2nd Qualifier.

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