With two back-to-back wins, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) has been promoted to the seventh position in the position. They now have gained four wins in 11 games at a net run rate of -0.049.
Even though the scorecard says that RCB had a comfortable four-wicket victory on consecutive occasions over the Gujarat Titans, the real story at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium was quite different.
Chasing a low total of 148, RCB reached 92 on the fifth ball of the fifth over, before they lost their captain Faf du Plessis, who played a key role in his 64 runs in 23 balls. The aim perhaps was to get to the target quite rapidly to improve their damaged net run rate (NRR).
‘We had to calm down a little bit’- Faf du Plessis
The runners-up from the 2016 season lost their six wickets for a span of 25 runs and 29 balls. Every batter kept on smashing the bowlers and finding the fielders. Eventually, it was Dinesh Karthik who had to stay unbeaten on 21 runs in 12 balls to carry the RCB side over the line with four wickets in hand, with 38 balls to spare.
On many occasions, RCB have made it tough for their run chases by throwing away wickets at regular intervals. In a 148-run chase, if the team have got off to a flying start, with close to 100 runs in the powerplay, very hardly there would be tension in the team environment.
‘I wasn’t mentally ready, I just chilling, and then things happened and then I had to pad up.’- RCB’s wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik summed up how badly the team struggled from a strong position.
‘Was a bit nervous, probably not the best assessment from us there.’ The RCB captain Faf du Plessis told at the post-match presentation. ‘Yes we wanted to go out there and get the total quickly to boost the NRR but probably when we were 4 down, we had to calm down a little bit.’
‘That’s the good thing about RCB’- Deep Dasgupta on RCB’s sudden struggle
1, 2, 3, and 1 were the individual scores of the middle-order batters in the Bengaluru line-up. And at a time, when even a few singles and doubles would have done the job for a while, the batters seemed to be smashing blindly.
Former India wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta also brought out the fact that the chase could have been interesting had the Titans used their trump card, ‘Rashid Khan’, who suffered from a shoulder injury while batting.
‘Would have been interesting had Rashid (Khan) been 100% fit.’ Dasgupta said in a discussion with ESPNcricinfo. ‘Obviously with the shoulder injury, he wasn’t there, and he came in, and basically was bowling full-tosses because of the injury.’
Even the former New Zealand bowler Mitchell McClenaghan also spoke about why the RCB batters were trying their best for a quick chase.
‘I think 12.3 overs if they chased it down within that time frame, they would have gone net zero in terms of their net run rate.’ McClenaghan expressed in the same discussion. ‘It’s going to be really critical for them at the end, but a really significant win for them’
RCB will take on Punjab Kings in their next game on May 09, at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
