IPL 9, Qualifier 1 RCB v GL – 5 Talking Points

After 56 league matches, Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 came down to the final four teams. In the first qualifier, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) played at Gujarat Lions (GL) at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore.

The RCB skipper Virat Kohli and was happy to put the opposition into bat first. They started well with 3 wickets but Dwayne Smith held the innings together and helped Gujarat post a target of 158. Dhawal Kulkarni with his career-best T20 bowling performance got Gujarat in a winning position. At one point RCB was 68/6 but, AB de Villiers played a mind-blowing innings to win the match by 4 wickets with 10 balls to spare.

1. RCB’s bowling performance:

On the first ball of second over of the match by Iqbal Abdulla, Brendon McCullum danced down the wicket and tried to heave it over mid-off but a bit of turn it took the outside edge and went straight to AB de Villiers at deep cover. Abdulla once again found the outside edge of the bat of Aaron Finch, who was trying to play work it on the leg-side. Gayle took it comfortably at first slip and Lions were 6/2.

Shane Watson was in to bowl the next over with Suresh Raina at the crease. Watson bowled a shortish ball on middle, Raina tried to pull it and ended up flapping it in the air and S Aravind at short fine-leg took a smart catch. On the last ball of his 3rd over, he had Ravindra Jadeja caught at backward point by Chris Gayle. Watson was hit for two sixes on the first two balls of his last over by Eklavya Dwivedi but was caught by Kohli on the 3rd. Dwayne Bravo was on strike for the next ball, DJ missed Watto hit and that was his 4th wicket. Watson finished with figures of 4 for 29 from his four overs.

How did the match pan out? – IPL 9, Qualifier 1 Review: RCB hiccups through to the finals

2. Fight back from Dwayne Smith:

Dwayne Smith has been the man with the golden arm for GL for the last few matches, picking wickets up front for them and in the last few encounters, he did it with the bat tonight. Smith came out with a positive intent and played his shots. He had an 85-run partnership with Dinesh Karthik for the fourth wicket.

While looking for the big shots towards the end of the innings, he was dismissed by the leg-spinner, Yuzvendra Chahal in his final over. After hitting a six of the previous delivery, Kohli had a quick chat with Chahal and he bowled it quick and wide outside the off-stump. Smith had to fetch it from wide outside off and he dragged it to the hands of Kohli at long-on. However, Smith had played an innings of 73 off 41 to push Gujarat Lions towards a decent total.

3. Career best T20 figures for Dhawal Kulkarni:

With 158 runs on the board, what Gujarat needed was early wickets and their frontline pacer Dhawal Kulkarni gave them a dream start with the wickets of Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, KL Rahul and Sachin Baby.

On the 2nd ball of his first over (2nd over of the match), Kohli chopped on a short and wide delivery onto his stumps. The pitch was on the slower side and the ball seemed to have got slower off the wicket. Kulkarni set up Gayle well with some short deliveries with one hitting his grill and then backed it up with a full-length delivery and Gayle was still on the back foot to edge it onto the stumps. Rahul nicked a back of length delivery to the slip on the first ball at the crease.

How did Twitter react to the game? – Twitter Reactions: AB de Villiers and Abdulla take RCB into the final

4. AB de Villiers’ match-winning knock:

With wickets falling at the other end, ABD played with a cool head to take his side into the finals. De Villiers added 39 runs for the 6th wicket with Stuart Binny and a match winning partnership with Iqbal Abdulla of an unbeaten 91-runs. He remained unbeaten on 79 from 47 balls with 5 fours and 5 sixes and was undoubtedly awarded as the ‘Man of the Match’.

5. Virat’s animation:

Virat has been exciting and highly energetic on the field. He took a good low catch of Dwivedi, and he slammed the ball on the ground to exult and the umpire thought that the ball might have been grounded and that is why Kohli threw it on the ground. The on-field umpire then went to the third umpire and the batsman was given out. Later on, while his teammate Stuart Binny was given out lbw while the ball pitched and hit him outside the off stump, Virat at the dugout walked to the fourth umpire and had a word with him. And towards the end, with each run his team scored, he was pumping up – and that’s Virat Kohli for you.