Royal Challengers Bangalore 172 for 2 (Kohli 82*, du Plessis 73) beat Mumbai Indians 171 for 7 (Varma 84*, Wadhera 21, Karn 2-32) by eight wickets
The win was set up by Royal Challengers’ bowlers. After inserting Mumbai in, du Plessis used seven of them; except Glenn Maxwell who bowled just one over, everyone else picked up at least one wicket.
Du Plessis and Kohli, though, showed how much under-par Mumbai were. The pair added 148 in 14.5 overs for the opening stand, du Plessis hitting a 43-ball 73 and Kohli an unbeaten 82 off 49. When Kohli hit the winning runs, there were still 22 balls left in the game.
Impact Player – Jason Behrendorff in for Suryakumar Yadav
Mumbai, who had started the game with three overseas players, brought in Jason Behrendorff in the second innings. He replaced Suryakumar Yadav, but it made little difference. Behrendorff went for 37 in three wicketless overs. Royal Challengers were in such a comfortable position during the chase that they didn’t even use an Impact Player.
A powerless powerplay
Batting at No. 3, Cameron Green lasted only four balls and was castled by a Topley yorker. Siraj could have had Rohit Sharma too in the next over. After bowling three dots in a row to Rohit, Siraj went for a bouncer. Rohit countered it with a pull, only to top-edge it straight up. But Siraj couldn’t hear Dinesh Karthik’s call – blame it on the deafening noise by the spectators – and ended up colliding with the wicketkeeper, and the chance went down. But it didn’t prove costly as Akash Deep had Rohit caught behind three balls later. Rohit made 1 off ten balls; Mumbai ended the powerplay on 29 for 3.
Tilak Varma’s lone hand
Coming in at 19 for 3, Varma opened his account with a second-ball six. But when Suryakumar cut Michael Bracewell straight to point, Mumbai were reduced to 48 for 4 in the ninth over. Varma, though, kept playing his shots. He hit Maxwell for a six and four off successive balls before scooping Deep four a boundary in the next over.
He found some support from debutant Nehal Wadhera who hit Karn Sharma for back-to-back sixes, the second one going landing on the roof over long-on. However, he holed out to long-on when he attempted it for the third time. Karn dealt another, and a much bigger blow, in the 16th over by bowling Tim David.
Varma appeared immune to all that and brought up his fifty in 32 balls, with a six off Deep. His knock had steered Mumbai to 133 for 7 after 18 overs. Siraj then lost his radar and sent down five off-side wides – four of them in a row. To make it worse, Varma picked up two fours as well in the over.
Harshal Patel had conceded only 21 from his first three overs but he too bore the brunt now, going for 22 in the last over of the innings. Arshad Khan, the other debutant on the night, smashed the second ball of the over for a six. Tilak followed it with a pulled four before wrapping up the innings with a helicoptered six.
The du Plessis-Kohli show
Mumbai’s left-arm seamers Behrendorff and Arshad found swing with the new ball, but du Plessis defused that threat by using his feet. He went down the track three times in Behrendorff’s second over, hitting one four and two successive sixes.
Jofra Archer failed to latch on to a tough return catch from Kohli off his first ball for Mumbai. On the next, Kohli steered him for four, and then went down the track to launch a slower one over long-off.
Du Plessis too enjoyed his luck when Kishan dropped him off Piyush Chawla in the fifth over, and took the side to 53 for no loss at the end of the powerplay. A couple of overs later, he welcomed Green into the attack with two fours and a six.
Du Plessis also brought up his fifty off 29 balls, with a six off Hrithik Shokeen, and celebrated the occasion by hitting another six on the spinner’s next ball. Despite hitting some eye-catching shots, Kohli was playing second fiddle to du Plessis. He took 38 balls for his half-century but by the time du Plessis got out, he had almost caught up with him.
Karthik, promoted to No. 3, fetched a three-ball duck. Maxwell, though, smashed two sixes in the first three balls he faced before Kohli sealed the win.
Hemant Brar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo