The heroics of Dinesh Karthik and Shahbaz Ahmed guided Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to a phenomenal four-wicket victory over Sanju Samson's Rajasthan Royal (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday (April 5). Chasing 170, losing four wickets in a space off 11 balls, RCB were in all sorts of trouble at 62 for four before Karthik (44 not out off 23 balls) and Ahmed (45 off 26) took the game away from the opposition with a 67-run partnership off just 33 balls.
The jolted RR skipper Sanju Samson, who scored 8 off 8, couldn't find one reason how his side lost the game despite dominating in major part of the game.
"I can't point out one moment where we lost the game. I thought it was a great effort to put up that total on such a slow wicket after losing the toss. Jos and Hetmyer batted brilliantly at the death. Taking the match to the last over with the dew coming in was a great effort as well," Sanju said at the post-match presentation.
Despite Jos Buttler's blistering 70 off 47 where he hammered half a dozen sixes, RR lost the game.
It was RCB's second win in three games while it was the first loss of the season for the Royals after consecutive victories.
At 55 for no loss in the seventh over, RCB were on course in the run chase before the game turned on its head with the Royals taking a flurry of wickets.
The wily Yuzvendra Chahal (2/15), playing against a team he played for seven seasons, was largely responsible for the RCB collapse. He forced an error from Faf du Plessis (29), who mistimed a leg break to be caught at long-on, before cleaning up left-hander David Willey (0) with a classical leg-break.
On whether he asked the umpires to change the ball because of dew Sanju said," No I didn't, I was confident about my bowlers. DK is someone with a lot of experience. We just need to take our time to set the field. Lot of positives to take out of this loss, and we can learn a lot of things as well."
Chahal also effected the run out of Virat Kohli (5) after a brilliant take and throw from Royals skipper Sanju Samson. Trent Boult then getting rid of Sherfane Rutherford made it 87 for five, leaving RCB in a lot of trouble.
That was when Karthik, who has shown stellar form this season, came into the middle and brought back RCB into the contest with some sensational strokes including a reverse sweep off Ravichandran Ashwin whose fourth over went for 21 runs.
Karthik did the bulk of the damage batting alongside Ahmed as they brought up their 50-run stand off just 21 balls.
