Picture : Twitter / IPL
Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore slumped to their fourth successive defeat in the season 12 of the IPL. In a match where both teams – RCB and Rajasthan Royals needed to win after three losses each, it was the Royals who came out on top on their home ground be registering a 7 wicket win.
Royals skipper Rahane won the toss and put RCB in to bat. Openers Virat Kohli and Parthiv Patel started well putting on 49 before Kohli fell for 23 to Shreyas Gopal. Leg- spinner Gopal was on a roll as he took the wickets of A B De Villiers ( 13 ) and Shimron Hetmyer ( 1) . Gopal’s three strikes rattled RCB and they could not recover. That Parthiv Patel was the top scorer again with 67 showed the poor form of the RCB batting line-up again. Late lower order hits by Marcus Stoinis unbeaten 31 off 28 balls and supported by Moeen Ali 18 off 9 not out saw RCB post a below par 158 / 4 in their 20 overs. They were at least 20 – 30 runs short .
For the Royals Shreyas Gopal was star with 3/ 12 ( 4 overs)
The Royals in reply were confident with Jos Buttler and skipper Ajinkya Rahane . Rahane stroked 22 off 20 balls and featured a opening stand of 60 with Jos Buttler . Buttler was in superb touch smashing a 59 off 43 balls. Steve Smith scored 38. Rahul Tripathi 34 not out and Ben Stokes not out 1 gave the finishing touches as the Royals won by one ball to spare. Royals finishing at 164 / 3 in 19. 5 overs and winning by 7 wickets.
RCB were let down by their poor fielding and dropped several catches, Virat Kohli dropped Rahane and later Moeen Ali too dropped one to complete miserable day in the field. The bowlers too bowled short, wide, full and even pace had no direction whatsoever. Umesh Yadav 0/ 40 ( 3.5 overs) Navdeep Saini 0/ 35 ( 4 overs) while Yuzvendra Chahal took two wickets (2/17).
Virat Kohli and RCB need something really special to put their campaign back on track . Not easy to lift the morale after four very listless outings . They need to win all their remaining matches to stay in the hunt. One or two losses ahead will surely end their season for sure.
