Quinton De Kock! This is the name of an undoubted future legend, who has just started to flex his muscles. The South African simply massacred the Royal Challengers Bangalore in their own backyard to register a famous victory for the Delhi Daredevils. De Kock’s flawless century meant that the Daredevils were able to scale down 192 with sheer ease and won with 5 balls to spare.
Earlier, the Royal Challengers were once again powered by Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers. The duo were involved in another century stand and Kohli registered his fourth consecutive score in excess of 75. However, the momentum shifted in favor of the Daredevils, as Mohammad Shami and Chris Morris were accurate at the death and ensured that the hosts didn’t score in excess of 200.
At the post-match presentation, home skipper Virat Kohli admitted that the loss was difficult to swallow. “Yes, it is a hard one to swallow. We lost Watto and I didn’t get a strike for 8 balls, we were 10-15 runs short. Credit goes to Delhi the way they batted, especially Quinton de Kock, he took the game away from us. Karun as well for hanging around there. We thought we could get to 200,” said Kohli.
“But Delhi bowled well, set the field right and executed their plans. Shami, Chris Morris, and Brathwaite bowled well in the middle. But it happens in cricket. We have to believe that we can get a batsman out. If you are hesitant then the batsman is going to sense it and get on top of you,” Kohli added about the game.
Daredevils skipper Zaheer Khan praised De Kock and his bowlers for their show at the death. “Special effort by Quinton and Karun both. We know it was a high scoring ground. Of course, special mention has to be for Shami and Morris. My bad over helped me figure out what was going to work here, asked them to bowl back of a length. RCB have a top heavy batting line up. At one stage, we were wondering getting Gayle out was a good thing or bad. We ticked one box today and now we can take our foot off the paddle for a while,” said Khan.