Royal Challengers Bangalore thumped Delhi Daredevils by 8 wickets to kick-off their campaign in convincing style this seventh season at Sharjah.
In pursuit of a mediocre target of 146 runs, Bangalore started on the front foot as Parthiv Patel played an aggressive cameo scoring 27 runs in quick time.
From there on, Virat Kohli (49) and Yuvraj Singh (52) took RCB home overhauling the target in17th over registering an eight wicket win.
Here are the players who excelled and disappointed in our list of hits and flops.
Hits:
1. Yuvraj Singh
What difference a time of 10 days make. After playing a painfully slow innings in T20 World Cup final, which saw him get caught in the eye of entire country’s storm, Yuvraj Singh today made a sort of dream come back with a match winning fifty to get RCB off to a flier this season. Yuvraj, though, started slowly copping a few deliveries from Mohammad Shami on the helmet. Just when one wondered Yuvraj may never get back to his fluent best he showed some glimpses when he took Delhi spinners Shabaz Nadeem and Rahul Sharma to the task. Yuvraj during his 29 ball innings smashed 3 fours and 5 sixes sxoring at an impressive strike-rate of 179.31. Make no mistake Yuvraj is far from what we knew of him, but a couple of more innings like this and Yuvraj of old is not far away.
2. Virat Kohli
Mr. Consistent Virat Kohli continued his dream form in to the Indian Premier League as well scoring a decent 49. This innings, though, was not a typical Kohli innings as he struggled for most part, but didn’t threw his wicket away cheaply and helped his team reach the target. Kohli took full toll on DD bowlers after being dropped not once but twice in the same over smashing 2 fours and three sixes.
3. JP Duminy
For Delhi Daredevils the only positive from this game was JP Duminy’s fluent 67 not out as he teamed up with Ross Taylor (43*) to put on a 110 run unbeaten partnership for the fifth wicket after a top order collapse saw Delhi Daredevils struggling at 35/4. This innings from Duminy helped Delhi to a respectable total of 145/4. Duminy scored as many as 4 fours and three sixes.
Flops:
1. Murli Vijay
Bought by Delhi Daredevils from CSK for a whopping 5 cr. Vijay failed to live up to the billing as he could contribute only 18 runs at less than run-a-ball which, being an opener, is criminal in T20 cricket. India’s test opener Vijay has struggled in limited-overs cricket for well over a year now. Can he get his bearings right in IPL this year? Only time will tell. One thing that will go in favour of Vijay is that he will be given ample opportunities to prove his worth.
2. Dinesh Karthik
Deputizing for injured Kevin Pietersen, Dinesh Karthik made a dreaded duck to begin his second innings with Delhi Daredevils. Karthik was caught behind trying to steer for one run down to third-man. This was last thing Delhi expected from their standing captain. Karthik is a vital cog in Delhi line-up for this season and for Delhi’s to come back on track need an in-form Karthik.
3. Ashok Dinda
Ashok Dinda, butt of all jokes on Twitter, was at his consistent best again as he leaked 51 runs in his four allotted overs. The other bowlers from RCB though more than made up for that expensive Dinda spell. The rate at which Dinda is conceding runs he is quickly becoming a liability to the teams. Ashok Dinda somehow needs to pull up his socks or will quickly see him getting drop to the bench even at RCB.