It was a contest which can be called as Rishabh Pant vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, as the youngster was the only standout player for his franchise with the bat, which once again raised questions upon the choices of the team.
Pant played an innings of 57 runs in 36 deliveries and it was only till his stay at the crease when Delhi had any chances of winning the game, which was further vanquished when Pawan Negi bowled him on the first delivery of the final over.
Delhi saw many ups and downs during the chase, as after losing three early wickets in form of Aditya Tare, Karun Nair and opener Sam Billings, the young duo of Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant stood at the stage sharing 29 runs in 20 balls. Though Samson left after scoring 13, Pant continued to play his natural game.
The wickets continue to tumble but Rishabh Pant pursued to inject hopes of a win till last but none of the other players could really support him, which finally resulted in Delhi losing the game.
It was a big disappointment for the visitors as it was not a huge target, keeping in mind the pitch and few big names that we see in DD’s batting line-up.
Earlier after winning the toss, the home side did have a good start as the opening pair of Skipper Shane Watson and Chris Gayle shared 26-runs for the first wicket.
Gayle was just starting to play some shots but an acrobatic fielding effort from Sanju Samson brought an end to his innings. This wicket leads to a stuttered growth in RCB’s innings, as by the completion of 10 overs, they were three down for 61 on the board.
When every other batsman was looking helpless at the crease, Kedar Jadhav stood up the ranks at what can be called as his second home ground from past one year. He took his time at the start and it was the 13th over of the game where he made merry and churned out a total of 24 runs in an over of leg-spin of Amit Mishra.
The right-handed batsman continued the same blitz in the following over as well and reached his half century in 26 deliveries.
RCB was looking for a good total but a bit of change of pace from Zaheer Khan brought an end to Jadhav’s innings and again RCB looked in deep waters.
At the time of his dismissal, the home side was 142/6 with three overs still remaining and rest of line-up failed to cash death overs and could just add 15 runs in the last three.
But in the end, the result was in their favour, which was a sweet thing they can carry with them.
Brief Score: RCB 157/8 (Kedar Jadhav 69, Shane Watson 24; Chris Morris 3-21) defeat Delhi Daredevils (Rishabh Pant Sam 57, Billings 25; Pawan Negi 2-3, Billy Stanlake 2-29) by 15 runs in Bengaluru.