Royal Challengers Bangalore won the toss and elected to bowl against Delhi Daredevils in their first ever IPL game in Sharjah. Both the teams are yet to win the IPL trophy and must be hoping that IPL 2014 will change their fortunes.
Chasing 146 runs to win the game, RCB lost Maddinson early. Mohammad Shami struck early to give DD a much needed early breakthrough. RCB skipper Virat Kohli walked in to bat. With Gayle out, RCB needed a solid star. While Parthiv Patel is no match to Gayle in size and audacity, he attacked DD bowling attack with elan.
Crossing boundary ropes at will with his clean hitting. By the end of 7 overs, RCB had crossed 50-run mark and Kohli and Patel completed their fifty run partnership. But Rahul Sharma dismissed Parthiv Patel in his first over as he tried to go down the track and hit one big.
Yuvraj Singh joined Virat Kohli in the middle. Yuvraj was tested by Mohammad Shami in his first over with bouncers and slower ones. But Yuvraj stayed in the middle and then launched into the attack. Meanwhile, DD dropped Kohli twice; both the easy catches went down in the similar over. From that moment onwards, Kohli and Yuvraj Singh up the ante hitting 5 sixes in the space of 3 overs.
Yuvraj brought up his fifty in the 16th over as he smashed Rahul Sharma’s delivery for a six. In the same over, RCB wrapped up the match and sealed the win in their first game of IPL 7.
Earlier, Delhi Daredevils found themselves in tatters before Jean-Paul Duminy’s brilliant unbeaten half century took them to a decent 145 for four in their IPL campaign opener against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Sharjah.
Put into bat, the Daredevils were reduced to 35 for four in the eighth over with their top order batsmen coming a cropper before Duminy (67 not out) and Ross Taylor (43 not out) shared 110-runs for the unbroken fifth wicket stand at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
The duo built the innings by grafting for runs initially before opening up towards the end. Duminy especially slogged at the death overs as he hit a six off Yuvraj Singh and two maximums off Ashok Dinda. Coming together at 35 for four, the pair added 96 runs in the second 10 overs after the Daredevils could score just 49 for four at the halfway mark due to the initial jolts.
The last five wickets yielded 63 runs with Duminy and Taylor scoring 14, 13 and 17 from the final three overs. Duminy, the more aggressive of the duo, hit four boundaries and three sixes in his 48-ball unbeaten knock while Taylor smashed four boundaries in his 39-ball unconquered innings.
For RCB, Mitchell Starc, Albie Morkel, Varun Aaron and Yuzvendra Chahal took a wicket each. RCB captain Virat Kohli opted to bowl after winning the toss and straightaway put the Daredevils in tatters by scalping their top three batsmen in the space of just eight balls between third and fifth overs.
Opener Mayank Aggarwal (6), captain Dinesh Karthik (0) and Manoj Tiwari (1) made brief appearances at the crease before they fell to Starc, Morkel and Aaron respectively as the Daredevils were reduced to 17 for three in the fifth over.
The other opener Murali Vijay (18) was though shaping up well as he smashed a huge six off Starc and then a four off Morkel before he also perished without contributing much. Young Haryana leg-spinner Chahal, debuting for RCB in IPL, bowled him with a beauty as the ball straightened after pitching to knock down Vijay’s off-stump as the Daredevils found themselves in dire straits at 35 for 4.
The responsibility of taking Daredevils to a respectable total was left to Taylor and Duminy and the duo grafted for runs before opening up later on to take Daredevils score to 145 for four.
DD came into this game without their star player and skipper Kevin Pietersen as he suffered a finger-injury. In his absence, wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik led the DD side. RCB too missed Chris Gayle due to an injury.
Yuvraj Singh was under a lot of pressure following his display in the ICC World T20 final. He struggled in the beginning but then he was at his best hitting sixes.
Squads:
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Yuvraj Singh, Parthiv Patel, Albie Morkel, Mitchell Starc, Ashok Dinda, Ravi Rampaul, Muttiah Muralitharan, Nic Maddinson, Varun Aaron, Vijay, Sachin Rana, Yogesh Takawale, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shadab Jakati, Sandeep Warrier, Harshal Patel, Tanmay Mishra.
Delhi Daredevils: Dinesh Karthik, JP Duminy, Murali Vijay, Manoj Tiwary, Quinton de Kock, Mohammed Shami, Rahul Sharma, Saurabh Tiwary, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Shahbaz Nadeem, Ross Taylor, Milind Kumar, Wayne Parnell, HS Sharath, Jayant Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, James Neesham, Kedar Jadhav, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Shukla, Siddharth Kaul, Kevin Pietersen (unfit for this game).
DELHI
MA Agarwal c Kohli b Starc 6
M Vijay b Chahal 18
KD Karthik c †Patel b Morkel 0
MK Tiwary c †Patel b Aaron 1
JP Duminy not out 67
LRPL Taylor not out 43
EXTRAS (w 9, nb 1) 10
TOTAL (4 wickets; 20 overs) 145
DID NOT BAT JDS Neesham, WD Parnell, S Nadeem, R Sharma, Mohammed Shami
FALL OF WICKETS 1-15 (Agarwal, 2.6 ov), 2-16 (Karthik, 3.3 ov), 3-17 (Tiwary, 4.1 ov), 4-35 (Vijay, 7.1 ov)
BOWLING
MA Starc 4-0-33-1, JA Morkel 3-0-18-1, VR Aaron 3-1-9-1, YS Chahal 4-0-18-1, AB Dinda 4-0-51-0, Yuvraj Singh 2-0-16-0
BANGALORE
PA Patel† b Sharma 37
NJ Maddinson c †Karthik b Mohammed Shami 4
V Kohli* not out 49
Yuvraj Singh not out 52
EXTRAS (w 3, nb 1) 4
TOTAL (2 wickets; 16.4 overs) 146
DID NOT BAT AB de Villiers, JA Morkel, S Rana, AB Dinda, MA Starc, YS Chahal, VR Aaron
FALL OF WICKETS 1-6 (Maddinson, 1.5 ov), 2-62 (Patel, 8.5 ov)
BOWLING
JP Duminy 2-0-10-0, Mohammed Shami 4-0-30-1, WD Parnell 3-0-19-0, S Nadeem 2.4-0-32-0, R Sharma 3-0-33-1, JDS Neesham 2-0-22-0
Match details
Toss – Bangalore T20, who chose to field
Points – Bangalore T20 2, Delhi T20 0
Player of the match – tba
Umpires – Aleem Dar (Pakistan) and S Ravi (India)
TV umpire – VA Kulkarni (India)
Match referee – GF Labrooy (Sri Lanka)
Reserve umpire – K Bharatan (India)