IPL 9: RCB’s big guns fail, Rahul Delivers

Mumbai Indians’ Mitchell McClenaghan is ecstatic after dismissing RCB captain Virat Kohli in Bengaluru on Wednesday. (Photo: Shashidhar B.)

K.L. Rahul continued to add to his ever-rising reputation with yet another mature performance to lift Royal Challengers Bangalore from a precarious position to a respectable 151/4 against Mumbai Indians in the IPL-9 tie at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Wednesday.

Rahul, who has clearly worked on his batting in the past few months, struck an unbeaten 53-ball 68, which consisted of three fours and four sixes, to keep bolster his team after the usual suspects at the top order failed to fire against a Mumbai bowling attack which hardly afforded any room for the batsmen to swing.

RCB made two changes to their side with Chris Gayle and Sreenath Arvind coming in for Travis Head and Iqbal Abdullah, respectively. The away side handed Delhi batsman Nitesh Rana his IPL debut as Hardik Pandya dropped out of the XI.

Choosing to field, Mumbai bowlers came with a plan to stop the top heavy Bengaluru side and executed it to perfection.

Tim Southee opened with four dot balls before Virat Kohli lofted the next one over the ropes. The RCB captain then made his way back to pavilion after edging Mitch Mclenegan to Harbhajan Singh at the third slip.

Gayle, who was expected to make his presence felt, threw away his wicket by skying Southee’s delivery down the offside, which was collected by Rohit Sharma, to put his side in a pickle with the scoreboard reading 17/2 in 3.2 overs. They finished the power play scoring just 25 runs.

With RCB now in trouble, AB de Villiers and Rahul struggled to deal with Mumbai’s bowling which was kept, for most part, from wicket to wicket.

Rahul managed to fire a six and a four from Jasprit Bumrah’s over to settle the nerves around the stadium before de Villiers lofted Harbhajan for a six. The Indian spinner nearly got his man in the very next ball but failed to keep hold of the catch, albeit a difficult one.

The drop didn’t prove too costly as the South African departed in the eleventh over after conceding a top edge to Krunal Pandya which was caught at deep midwicket by Ambati Rayudu. Watson (15) also departed soon as a direct hit from Rohit Sharma’s throw from mid off reduced RCB to 98/4 in 15.3 overs.

With the team in dire need of runs, Rahul and Sachin Baby then stitched up a 27-ball 53-run partnership for the fifth wicket, with the bulk of the runs coming from the 18th over from Kieron Pollard.

Rahul fired the burly West Indian’s first ball for a six before Baby lofted back to back deliveries to the stands and ending the over, which provided 23 runs, with pull to the boundary.

Scoreboard Royal Challengers Bangalore: V. Kohli c Harbhajan b McClenaghan 7, C. Gayle c Sharma b Southee 5, AB de Villiers c Rayudu b Krunal 24, K.L. Rahul (not out) 68, S. Watson (run out) 15, S. Baby (not out) 25. Extras: (lb5, w2) 7. Total: (for 4 wkts, in 20 overs) 151. FoW: 1-8, 2-17, 3-60, 4-98. Bowling: Southee 4-0-27-1 (1w), McClenaghan 4-0-35-1 (1w), Bumrah 4-0-28-0, Krunal 4-0-15-1, Harbhajan 3-0-19-0, Pollard 1-0-22-0.