Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Chirs Gayle pulls for four against Delhi Daredevils yesterday. PICTURE: BCCI
Agencies/New Delhi
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) registered the seventh 10-wicket win in the Indian Premier League (IPL) when they crushed the Delhi Daredevils with a massive 57 deliveries remaining at the Feroz Shah Kotla yesterday.
The victory was also the 3rd-biggest in IPL history in terms of balls remaining and the 2nd time that RCB has achieved the feat of a 10-wicket victory.
Mitchell Starc and his fellow bowlers had set the tone by dismissing the Daredevils for a paltry 95 in 18.2 overs after Virat Kohli had won the toss and elected to field first. Chris Gayle then dismantled the Delhi bowling attack as the Royal Challengers raced to 99 without loss off just 10.3 overs.
Starc (4-0-20-3) started the rot when he trapped the in-form Shreyas Iyer in front for a first ball duck. Mayank Agarwal (27) and JP Duminy (13) tried to restore some order with a second-wicket stand of 34 off 30 balls, but the introduction of David Wiese (3.2-0-18-2) brought about the breakthrough as he had Duminy caught behind after finding a faint edge off the bat.
Varun Aaron (4-0-24-2), who picked up the man of the match award, then struck with successive balls in the next over when he removed the two danger men, Yuvraj Singh (two) and Angelo Mathews (nought) to leave the hosts on 39 for four midway through the 6th over.
Agarwal and Kedar Jadhav (33) remained defiant for almost six overs with a stand of 28 runs but Iqbal Abdulla (4-1-17-1) drew Agarwal into dancing down the track and Dinesh Karthik had the bails off in a flash. Kohli then brought Starc back into the attack and the Australian left-arm quick produced the goods with two excellent yorker-length deliveries to clean bowl Amit Mishra (two) and Shahbaz Nadeem (two).
AB de Villiers then ended off the innings in fine style when he threw down the stumps at the non-strikers end to have Domnic Josephs run out for a single.
In reply, Gayle set about reaching the target in double-quick time as he raced to his 50 off just 29 balls, finally smashing six boundaries and four maximums to end undefeated on 62 off just 40 deliveries. Kohli played the quiet partner at the start of the innings, but came into his own striking six boundaries, the last of which won the match, to end unbeaten on 32 off 23 balls.
The massive positive net run-rate achieved by RCB has lifted them above the Daredevils into fourth spot on the IPL log with a game in hand.
“We were outplayed in every department. Lots of lessons to be learnt out of the game. They took wickets at regular intervals and we could not build a partnership.
“We have a few days off and we need to regroup and pick it up again,” Daredevils’ captain JP Duminy said.
Earlier in the day, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals match was abandoned due to rains in Kolkatta.
