Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell's century stand in the first innings proved to be too much for the Rajasthan Royals (RR), who were restricted to just 182 runs while chasing Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) 189 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday, April 23. A fast start from Yashasvi Jaiswal and Devdutt Padikkal made it seem like the win was in the bag but the RCB bowlers did very well in the tail end to seal a seven-run victory.
The Du Plessis-Maxwell show (again!)
Du Plessis (62) and Maxwell (77) added 127 runs for the third wicket off just 66 balls, which was the third time the pair crossed the 100-run mark in seven matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season. This was after stand-in skipper Virat Kohli was caught LBW by Trent Boult off the first ball of the match.
Both players reached their half-centuries after a slow start but an extremely effective run-out by Yashasvi Jaiswal in the 14th over ended du Plessis's stay at the crease, which then caused a massive RCB collapse. The home side went from 139/2 to 189/9, losing seven wickets for just 50 runs.
Du Plessis hit his fifth half-century of the season, in just 39-balls, with eight fours and two sixes to his name. His Australian counterpart Maxwell struck his third fifty of this season and finished with a 44-ball 77 (six 4s and four 6s) but the rest of the RCB batters squandered the platform set up brilliantly by their top order. Dinesh Karthik (11) was the only other RCB batter to score in double digits.
Among the RR bowlers, Sandeep Sharma (2/49) was the most expensive, while Boult got Kohli and then Shahbaz Ahmed in the 1st and 3rd overs respectively, but then conceded 41 runs. Royals spin pair Ravichandran Ashwin (1/36) and Yuzvendra Chahal (4-0-28-1) were also effective.
Fast start, slow end
On a pitch which has seen many 200+ scores being scored and chased down, many expected it to be a walk in the park for the Royals. After an initial hiccup which saw IPL 2022's Orange Cap winner Jos Buttler get bowled by Mohammed Siraj for a duck, whose brilliant cutter uprooted the middle stump. But the other RR opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (47) combined with Devdutt Padikkal (52) to smash a partnership of 98 runs in just 66 balls.
Things went awry for RR when Padikkal's wicket fell in the 12th over. David Willey got the breakthrough off a back of a length on-off delivery, which he holed straight to Kohli. Jaiswal soon followed in the 14th over, with the young opener hitting the ball to Kohli off Harshal Patel's bowling.
This effectively ended the charge by RR, as skipper Sanju Samson (22) and Shimron Hetmyer (3) returned to the pavilion cheaply. With 20 runs needed in the final over of the match, Harshal Patel was hit for 4, 2, 4 in the first three balls of the over by Ashwin, but the pacer got the wicket in the fourth ball of the match, after which he successfully defended the remaining 10 runs.
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