Ahh, the vagaries of this IPL format.
Just days earlier, Kolkata Knight riders’ Morene Morkel had bowled with such venom and ferocity that he had had Mumbai Indians limping. On Saturday, he started off on a similar vein, bowling three fierce overs and accounting for Kohli with a snorter.
In the field however, he gave it all away. Dropping Gayle once is dangerous. Dropping Gayle twice in a T20 is tantamount to forfeiting the game. Two difficult chances, but chances which you expect an international cricketer to pouch. Morkel dropped both of them. Fittingly, he bowled the last ball of the match. Royal Challengers Bangalore cantered home with a three-wicket victory, and KKR yet again snatched defeat in a game they should have comfortably won.
Motoring Along
In the game before this, Chennai Super Kings had given an exhibition of batting prowess, pressing the accelerator right from the start and never letting go. At 53/0 after six overs, it seemed KKR would emulate them. With hitters like Yusuf Pathan, Shakib and Andre Russel, the stage seemed set for another 200+ score.
Bangalore’s fielding helped matters. Twice in two matches at the Eden Gardens now, the level of fielding have been quite pathetic. This time, it was AB De Villiers who dropped the simplest of catches and even missed a direct hit. But to give credit to RCB’s bowlers, they applied a little bit of a squeeze on KKR, bringing the run rate down from close to 9 per over to a more manageable 7.7 after 10 overs.
Without Starc though, RCB’s bowling lacks teeth and Andre Russell took full advantage of that, tonking his way to an explosive 41 off 17 balls and setting RCB a challenging target of 179 to chase down to win their first match of IPL 8.
The Gayle Show
Gayle has played plenty of dangerous innings. This one, however, will stand out. It is not that often that Gayle plays a knock of such unbridled maturity. He bid his time, dropped anchor for a while, kept his head despite wickets falling at the other end, and finally picked just the right moment to stamp his authority on the result.
KKR dropped Umesh Yadav and gave the world its first look at its new mystery spinner, KC Cariappa. Unfortunately, the most mysterious thing about him seemed to be his action as Cariappa suffered a nightmarish debut. Gayle and De Villiers hammered him for 28 runs off his two overs; Cariappa did get revenge by getting ABD out stumped, but it came a little too late for him to salvage his night.
Back to Gayle. At 93/4 with only Sammy for company, a long tail to come and De Villiers just dismissed, it seemed the end was nigh for RCB. Gayle is known for being a lot of things, but not exactly as a "finisher". This time though, Gayle was here to prove a point or two.
With Sammy being dismissed, Gayle waived off his distaste for running and started picking up quick twos to keep the strike. Whenever the required run rate seemed to be spiralling out of control, he had the big shot ready. With 44 required off 23 and 6 wickets down, Gayle backed himself to score the runs, blocking out two deliveries from Shakib before hitting him for two huge sixes. He then intelligently took a single off the last ball to take strike in the next over, to be delivered by Narine.
Narine v Gayle was the big test. This time, Gayle aced it, creaming 17 runs off the over to deliver RCB to the doors of victory. He did lose his wicket in the next over but by then, the game was almost over and Patel and Ahmed duly carried RCB to victory.
The Overview
If KKR are serious about defending their title, they need to take a hard look at their bowling and fielding strategies. The fielding has been utterly shambolic and even the bowling has been quite sub-standard. In both their matches, they’ve let teams off the hook from positions of strength. The strategy of choosing four spinners is also something they need to relook; with Yusuf and Shakib, they already have depth in spin options and it might be wiser to go with another pace bowler.
RCB will be quite satisfied with this performance. They peppered their team with explosive batsmen and that risk has come off, at least in this match. What will please Vettori, the head coach of RCB, the most is that they won this game without substantial contributions from either Kohli or De Villiers, two of their biggest guns. In a long tournament like this, it won’t be long before either of the two or even both explode and if Gayle carries on in this vein of form, Bangalore have every chance to break some IPL batting records.
Just days earlier, Kolkata Knight riders’ Morene Morkel had bowled with such venom and ferocity that he had had Mumbai Indians limping. On Saturday, he started off on a similar vein, bowling three fierce overs and accounting for Kohli with a snorter.
In the field however, he gave it all away. Dropping Gayle once is dangerous. Dropping Gayle twice in a T20 is tantamount to forfeiting the game. Two difficult chances, but chances which you expect an international cricketer to pouch. Morkel dropped both of them. Fittingly, he bowled the last ball of the match. Royal Challengers Bangalore cantered home with a three-wicket victory, and KKR yet again snatched defeat in a game they should have comfortably won.
Motoring Along
In the game before this, Chennai Super Kings had given an exhibition of batting prowess, pressing the accelerator right from the start and never letting go. At 53/0 after six overs, it seemed KKR would emulate them. With hitters like Yusuf Pathan, Shakib and Andre Russel, the stage seemed set for another 200+ score.
Bangalore’s fielding helped matters. Twice in two matches at the Eden Gardens now, the level of fielding have been quite pathetic. This time, it was AB De Villiers who dropped the simplest of catches and even missed a direct hit. But to give credit to RCB’s bowlers, they applied a little bit of a squeeze on KKR, bringing the run rate down from close to 9 per over to a more manageable 7.7 after 10 overs.
Without Starc though, RCB’s bowling lacks teeth and Andre Russell took full advantage of that, tonking his way to an explosive 41 off 17 balls and setting RCB a challenging target of 179 to chase down to win their first match of IPL 8.
The Gayle Show
Gayle has played plenty of dangerous innings. This one, however, will stand out. It is not that often that Gayle plays a knock of such unbridled maturity. He bid his time, dropped anchor for a while, kept his head despite wickets falling at the other end, and finally picked just the right moment to stamp his authority on the result.
KKR dropped Umesh Yadav and gave the world its first look at its new mystery spinner, KC Cariappa. Unfortunately, the most mysterious thing about him seemed to be his action as Cariappa suffered a nightmarish debut. Gayle and De Villiers hammered him for 28 runs off his two overs; Cariappa did get revenge by getting ABD out stumped, but it came a little too late for him to salvage his night.
Back to Gayle. At 93/4 with only Sammy for company, a long tail to come and De Villiers just dismissed, it seemed the end was nigh for RCB. Gayle is known for being a lot of things, but not exactly as a "finisher". This time though, Gayle was here to prove a point or two.
With Sammy being dismissed, Gayle waived off his distaste for running and started picking up quick twos to keep the strike. Whenever the required run rate seemed to be spiralling out of control, he had the big shot ready. With 44 required off 23 and 6 wickets down, Gayle backed himself to score the runs, blocking out two deliveries from Shakib before hitting him for two huge sixes. He then intelligently took a single off the last ball to take strike in the next over, to be delivered by Narine.
Narine v Gayle was the big test. This time, Gayle aced it, creaming 17 runs off the over to deliver RCB to the doors of victory. He did lose his wicket in the next over but by then, the game was almost over and Patel and Ahmed duly carried RCB to victory.
The Overview
If KKR are serious about defending their title, they need to take a hard look at their bowling and fielding strategies. The fielding has been utterly shambolic and even the bowling has been quite sub-standard. In both their matches, they’ve let teams off the hook from positions of strength. The strategy of choosing four spinners is also something they need to relook; with Yusuf and Shakib, they already have depth in spin options and it might be wiser to go with another pace bowler.
RCB will be quite satisfied with this performance. They peppered their team with explosive batsmen and that risk has come off, at least in this match. What will please Vettori, the head coach of RCB, the most is that they won this game without substantial contributions from either Kohli or De Villiers, two of their biggest guns. In a long tournament like this, it won’t be long before either of the two or even both explode and if Gayle carries on in this vein of form, Bangalore have every chance to break some IPL batting records.
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