Image Credit- AP
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) had six straight victories going into the IPL 2024 Eliminator, while Rajasthan Royals (RR) had lost five straight games. However, momentum doesn’t actually exist in sports, especially in a sport as erratic as T20.
It was a two-part match, with RR crossing the boundary with an over remaining after some nervous moments during their chase.
The two-end game started early. In the first three overs, Boult swung the new ball and was inch-perfect with his lengths and lines, giving the batsmen no space to release their arms and preventing slot balls and long hops. In those three overs, he gave up just six runs and two leg-byes, and he had du Plessis caught at deep midwicket to break the opening stand of 37.
However, the RCB hammered 42 in three overs at the opposite end. By the end of the powerplay, Virat Kohli, who frequently uses his foot to step out or make room, looked menacing as he raced to 30 off 19.
Ashwin replaced Boult at the end with the lengthy leg-side boundary (for the right-hand batsman), and it was still difficult to score from that end. Ashwin bowled brilliantly, mostly using his carrom and reverse-carrom variations against the right-hand batters of the RCB. He bowled at a fast tempo, either into the pitch or straight up at the batters’ feet, while giving no room.
However, he was also helped by the end from which he bowled and the fact that the RCB had lost significant wickets before to his first two overs. He bowled the ninth over, which came right after Yuzvendra Chahal had dismissed Kohli, and the seventh over, which came just after Boult had removed du Plessis.
When they could target the short leg-side boundary, RCB continued to play their strokes. They took Avesh for 13 in the 12th over and Chahal for 13 in the tenth. Rajat Patidar miscued a massive hit off Ashwin in between, but Dhruv Jurel, coming in from long on, knocked down a sitter to give him a respite.
But Ashwin did not allow RR to dwell on that error for long. He got Cameron Green to mishit in the 13th over, his fourth, and then he dismissed Glenn Maxwell, who capped a poor season at bat by trying to hit his first ball for six and being caught long-on.
In what is probably his last innings at the senior level, Karthik was prickly even as he scored 11 off 13; nevertheless, in the 19th over, Avesh finally got him with a hard-length legcutter that climbed sharply on him. Even though Mahipal Lomror scored 32 off 17 at the finish, including two leg-side sixes off Chahal, RCB’s total of 172 at the half felt insufficient.
Following those misses, the two openers repeatedly hit the boundary; Yash Dayal was especially unlucky to let up three fours to Jaiswal shortly after he was sent out; by the end of the fifth over, RR had reached 45 without losing.
With a superb sixth over that saw him give up only two runs and bowl Kohler-Cadmore with a slower yorker, Lockie Ferguson put a stop to the powerplay. But as Jaiswal and Sanju Samson grabbed 17 runs off the left-arm spin of Swapnil Singh in the seventh over, including a six and two fours, both towards the shorter boundary, RR was still well in control.
The Royals were four down and needed 58 off 36 at the end of the 14th over.
That difference would be closed in the 16th over, when Riyan Parag and Shimron Hetmyer took 17 off of Green’s fourth. Then, in the 17th, Hetmyer hit Dayal for two fours, reducing the equation to 19 off 18.
But there was still time for one last twist: Mohammed Siraj finished the over by forcing Hetmyer to make a mistake, bowled Parag for 36 with a full, straight delivery that he played across.
It left Royals needing 13 from 12 with two new batters at the crease, and an unlikely RCB win was still on the cards. Rovman Powell, though, finished it off, finding a bit of luck early in the 19th with a pair of edged fours off Ferguson before completing the job with a stylish straight six.