3119dThe Report by Devashish Fuloria

Bowlers help Royal Challengers to a big win

Led by a fiery Mitchell Starc and ably supported by the rest, Royal Challengers Bangalore dismantled the Rajasthan Royals' batting line-up with precision to set-up an important nine-wicket win in Ahmedabad

Match Centre

Statistics

Best performances - Batsmen

V Kohli
V Kohli
62(46) 1x4 - 3x6
Control %89%
  • Productive Shot
  • pull
  • 15 runs
  • 1x4 - 1x6
7 0 6 1 5 3 17 23
AB de Villiers
AB de Villiers
47(34) 6x4 - 0x6
Control %91%
  • Productive Shot
  • square drive
  • 8 runs
  • 1x4 - 0x6
3 5 2 0 16 2 8 11

Best performances - Bowlers

MA Starc
MA Starc
O4
M0
R22
W3
Eco5.5
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
1W
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
HV Patel
HV Patel
O4
M0
R23
W2
Eco5.75
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH

Match Details

Toss

Royal Challengers Bangalore , elected to field first

Player Of The Match

Season

Hours of play (local time)

20.00 start, First Session 20.00-21.30, Interval 21.30-21.50, Second Session 21.50-23.20

Match days

24 April 2015 - night match (20-over match)

TV Umpires

Reserve Umpire

Match Referee

Points

Royal Challengers Bangalore 2, Rajasthan Royals 0

Commentator: Vishal Dikshit

11.03pm RCB finally win another match, their second in five matches and there are high-fives all around, Kohli punches the air. Pretty clinical performance from RCB after their spinners restricted Rajasthan to 130 and their top order made sure they didn't stutter at all to get there with nearly four overs to spare, nine-wicket win for them.

Shane Watson: We didn't score enough, unfortunately. RCB outplayed us today and summed up the conditions very well today. Getting 150-160 would have been a decent total probably, this wicket is pretty slow. There's no excuse, every game is important and losing the Super Over match also had no excuse. Next time we'll try to perform better when the opportunity arises. We just need momentum going our way.

Virat Kohli: We wanted this sort of a performance today, this might be a momentum change for us. It's a well-earned and timely win for us. We had to pull the intensity up for us, brilliant effort with the ball and on the field. I asked the players to target bowlers they felt comfortable taking on, a lot of preparations go on and guys responded beautifully. We know we can play like this but we can't wait for things to happen, we have to make them happen. Tonight was a team performance, guys taking wickets equally, fielding was top notch. I knew I had to pull up my intensity more than anyone else, before asking them to do it. We thought AB had to come at No. 3, we have to make him play a lot of balls. I decided to open because of that.

Man of the Match Mitchell Starc: I'm not 100% yet, feeling good. The ball is coming out well, few things to improve on. I don't think there's a bowler in the world who's 100%, let's stick to that. I probably swung the ball too much to the leg side and leaked a few runs. The conditions are different here but happy with the plans working out here.

That's all we have from this match between the two Royals, one-sided match it turned out to be and RCB will be happy with that. This is Vishal signing off, join us again tomorrow for the double-header, until then, it's goodbye and good luck!

Choton: "This RCB win and RR loss is good for the tournament, and will make the race for the knock-out stage more competitive / interesting! "

Maxi: "RCB bowling before and after: Starc contrast?"

Vasant: "This season will be interesting contest between all team to make it to final 4. Most of the teams are going equal except Mumbai right now with 5 loss and Chennai with only 1 loss."

Sujay: "Where is the guy who said RR will win by 3 runs... ??? "

16.1
4
Hooda to de Villiers, FOUR, full toss on the pads, flicked to the midwicket boundary for four to seal the game

Scores level. Just one more to go now, here's Deepak Hooda round the wicket

Yogesh Singh Ra: "No matter how big fan I am of India and RR but whenever ABD comes on crease, it forces me to just switch my support to other team !!"

END OF OVER:
16 | 6 Runs | RCB: 130/1 (1 run required from 24 balls, RR: 8.12, RRR: 0.25)

  • AB de Villiers43 (33b)
  • Virat Kohli62 (46b)
  • Dhawal Kulkarni4-0-26-0
  • Pravin Tambe4-0-36-0
15.6
1
Kulkarni to de Villiers, 1 run, good yorker on the leg stump, AB comes down and pushes the ball to long on
15.5
0
Kulkarni to de Villiers, no run, full around off, AB hardly moves and pushes it back to the bowler
15.4
1
Kulkarni to Kohli, 1 run, full and wide, Kohli made room but got some bat to steer it to deep point
15.3
2
Kulkarni to Kohli, 2 runs, bangs it in short, Kohli comes down and slaps the ball along the ground wide of deep midwicket for two
15.2
1
Kulkarni to de Villiers, 1 run, swinging in a bit from off, Kohli punches it down to long on for one
  • How RCB's bowlers turned it around

    Five moves that worked perfectly was Royal Challengers Bangalore in Ahmedabad

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    Plays of the Day from the match between Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Ahmedabad

  • Bowlers help Royal Challengers to a big win

    Led by a fiery Mitchell Starc and ably supported by the rest, Royal Challengers Bangalore dismantled the Rajasthan Royals' batting line-up with precision to set-up an important nine-wicket win in Ahmedabad

  • Make the ads fade to black

    Flashing advertisements on the sightscreen behind the batsman causes bowlers and umpires to be unsighted leading to dropped catches and possibly even injuries

Trouble Defending

14

Number of times Royals' have previously batted first in the IPL and scored 140 or less. They went on to lose each of those games.

Rare Outing

2

Previous instances of AB de Villiers batting at No. 3 or higher in 66 matches for Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Man for the Death

3

Runs conceded by Starc in the 20th over, the fewest by any bowler this IPL. Starc has done this twice.

Limp

30

Runs scored by Royals in the last 5 overs, the fewest for any team this IPL. They only hit 2 during this phase.

Twin Score

73/3

Royals' score after 10 overs - exactly the same as when batting first in their win against Kings XI earlier this season.

The turning tide

3

Number of consecutive games where Rajasthan have beaten Bangalore. They lost 5 out of 6 before that.