Chris Gayle came up with another good performance to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore's run chase against Chennai Super Kings in their IPL match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. After the early loss of AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli motor along to lead Bangalore's run chase. However, Kohli fell to Albie Morkel after scoring 31 runs of 29 balls.
Zaheer Khan, Sreenath Aravind and Daniel Vettori took two wickets each as Royal Challengers Bangalore restricted Chennai Super Kings to 128/8 despite an unbeaten 70 from MS Dhoni.
A heap of wickets at the start severely dented Chennai as Zaheer Khan bowled superbly.
Zaheer began the slide in the third over, eliciting a loose drive from Mike Hussey on to his stumps. It triggered a dramatic rot as CSK slumped to 23 for four at the end of the Powerplay - their top-order blown away through a combination of disciplined bowling and poor shot-selection.
The first pocket of resistance was provided by Wriddhiman Saha and Dhoni, who added 42 for the fifth wicket in 47 deliveries.
Wriddhiman (22, 30 balls, 1x4, 1x6) who won man-of-the-match award in the last game looked scratchy from the beginning as he wasted a lot of deliveries. There were only couple of significant scoring strokes from Wriddhiman - a square cut off Vettori's bowling and slog swept six off Gayle.
Wriddhiman should only blame himself for not capitalising on the start as he perished trying a cross batted heave off Virat Kohli's bowling.
But with Dwayne Bravo and Albie Morkel failing to contribute significantly lower down, it was entirely up to Dhoni to do the scoring.
The Indian captain began cautiously, but once he got his eye in, he treated a packed gathering to a feast of strokeplay. He first picked off Chris Gayle for two sixes, but saved his best for Mithun to give his bowlers something of a target to defend in the battle for the top slot.
Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Daniel vettori won the toss and elected to bowl against Chennai Super Kings.
If RCB lose, they will either play Kolkata Knight Riders (16 from 13), Mumbai Indians (16 from 13) or Kings XI Punjab (14 from 13) in the eliminator. The winner in the Mumbai Indians versus Kolkata Knight Riders match will play CSK in qualifier.
The MS Dhoni-led Super Kings have an edge over RCB. Their batting, which has been gaining confidence and momentum with each outing, runs deep.
Michael Hussey, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, Subramaniam Badrinath, Dhoni and Albie Morkel have been in good nick.
The Super Kings bowling attack is possibly the best in the competition, with Doug Bollinger, Morkel and Ravichandran Ashwin being both restrictive and destructive.
But there in one phenomenon in the RCB ranks that can decimate all these positive attributes. Only if Super Kings price out Chris Gayle early in the innings can they entertain hopes of scoring another win over their southern rivals.
No comments:
Post a Comment