Royal Challengers Bangalore ended a miserable season with a consolation victory over hosts Delhi Daredevils by a margin of 10 runs here on Sunday. The victory was achieved through intelligent batting and clever bowling making one wonder why they have ended up as wooden spoon holders.
Defending a modest looking target of 162 on a pitch that seemed good for batting and conducive to strokeplay, RCB bowlers decided to take as much pace off the ball as possible and and sucked the life out of Delhi batsmen's shots.
Ironicallly, at the start of the chase, newcomer Avesh Khan impressed with his pace and bounce and got the wicket of Sanju Samson in his and innings' very first over. Karun Nair and Shreyas Iyer, though, looked comfortable and took the attack to Yuzvendra Chahal.
Nair (26 off 22 balls) seemed to be in sublime form with some delightful boundaries. However his innings was cut short when an attempted pull off Watson ended up in the hands of the fielder.
Iyer was joined by Rishabh Pant and together they steadied the ship and took their team to fifty in 7.4 overs. Pant went after Travis Head in the ninth over by hitting a four and a six. Delhi were 76/2 after first 10 overs.
But then, RCB probably realised that on this pitch where the ball comes on to the bat nicely, taking pace off is the best option. This strategy was implemented best by Shane Watson, who with his cutters made scoring extremely difficult for Delhi and ended up with figures of 1/16 in 4 overs.
Harshal Patel on the other hand, was a bit quicker and was easier to score off but he dealt two big blows to Delhi by dismissing Iyer and Marlon Samuels off consecutive deliveries in the 12th over.
Corey Anderson then joined Pant to try and get the chase back on track but the lack of pace in the bowling made it extremely hard for both, especially Anderson, to score boundaries.
Anderson was dismissed trying to force the pace in the 16th over. Pant, however, continued his fight and when he struck a six in the 17th over off Patel, hopes were raised but soon quelled as he was dismissed attempting a big heave in the same over. With that, Delhi's hopes faded and while there were the odd boundaries that came, RCB managed to hold on for a 10-run victory.
Earlier, in a good bowling display, hosts Delhi were able to restrict RCB to a modest score of 161/6.
Zaheer Khan got some early swing but Chris Gayle flicked him for a couple of boundaries in the very first over. While Gayle was showing aggressive intentions and timing the ball well, his partner, Vishnu Vinod, couldn't get the ball away and eventually Vinod was dismissed when he attempted a pull shot off Pat Cummins but instead got an inside edge onto the stumps in the fifth over.
Kohli walked in and he too, like Gayle, was enjoying the pace of the wicket and looked in good touch.
Cummins, though, was bowling well and with assistance from other bowlers was able to keep Gayle and RCB relatively quiet. At the midway point in the innings, RCB had just 66 runs on the board.
Anderson was brought into the attack and he bowled to the RCB captain round the wicket, wide of off-stump with a point, backward point and short third man and it almost worked when Kohli got a leading edge which flew over these fielders. Gayle, after being sedate, decided to break the shackles in the 12th over by smashing Amit Mishra over mid-wicket for six. Kohli did the same thing in that over when he got on strike and followed it with a four.
Gayle was out in the 15th over, going for a big hit of Shahbaz Nadeem's bowling. He scored 48 in 38 balls.
The new batsman, Travis Head was run-out in the next over. Delhi looked to be in danger of stumbling but Kohli looked seemed to be in pristine touch and reached his 50 in 39 balls.
The duo of Kohli and Kedar Jadhav were now looking to press the accelerator.
Kohli played a magnificent writy flick off a full-toss from Zaheer in the 17th over for six but was dismissed off the next ball attempting to clear long-off. He was dismissed for 58 off 45 balls.
Jadhav too, was soon dismissed looking for a big hit.
Delhi were bowling well, especially Cummins whose high pace and accurate yorkers were making things difficult for RCB. Mohammad Shami assisted him well.
Thanks to three boundaries struck in the final over by Pawan Negi, RCB managed to get past 150 and ended up with 161.