De Villiers magic powers RCB to thumping win
The South Africa batsman's 39-ball 90, his highest IPL score in a chase, lifted RCB to their second win
The South Africa batsman's 39-ball 90, his highest IPL score in a chase, lifted RCB to their second win
Scorer: Thilak Ram | Commentator: Alagappan Muthu
Right time to pack up. There's a double-header tomorrow as well, starting with Sunrisers Hyderabad v Chennai Super Kings and then peaking with Mumbai Indians v Rasjathan Royals. Hope you'll join us for the shenanigans then. For now, g'night.
AB de Villiers is the Man of the Match. "Some of those nights when I see the ball well, last two innings, I didn't. But tonight it was nice and clear. It buys my time an extra split second to make a decision. When I do get going, I cash in on the momentum. I spoke about being a black mamba earlier. And today I wanted to be that. This is the greatest crowd. But I must say when you get into the zone, you don't really hear much. It's just a buzz."
"These 30 runs are bigger than the 90 odd in the last game. We won. We still have a few areas to correct, but when you have the brilliant AB in the team, he always makes you smile," Virat Kohli says. "We understand our games very well and then he starts going off. And we know if we can get a 60-70 run partnership, we could win the game. Pity I couldn't stay till the end but Corey and Andy did well. [The catch} I was stunned when he took it, that's a brilliant catch, it happens in the IPL specially,. Good to see. That's a catch when you look back, you don't feel bad about getting out. The way we started with the ball was very good, we were spot on until 15 overs. Lot of positives, we can still rectify a few areas. They always support us well here, and we know if the team believes then the crowd also believes. We'll keep pushing hard for them"
Well. That happened. And that's a sentiment the Delhi Daredevils must be very familiar with. RCB's beloved AB de Villiers leads em all off the park. He was at work for 39 balls. He came away with 90 runs - his top score in an IPL chase - facing only five dots faced! That's just genius. And it puts Rishabh Pant's 85, which was a special innings too, on the wrong side of the scorecard. RCB continue to stay true to form. Their bowling leaks runs. Their batting makes up for it.
"He took the game away from us. We were in the game, 175 was a great effort from the batters. The pitch was a bit tacky in the first six overs, Shreyas and Rishabh were unbelievable to tackle it and get us a good score," Gautam Gambhir says. "I thought our spinners could have bowled better to AB. Specially when the left-arm spinner came in there was lot of grip. AB took his chances and dominated from the get go. The best catch I've ever seen. It was his wrong hand as well, Boult's a left-hander, he took it right-handed. I would be lying if I say I wasn't concerned. No one wants ot be in this situation. Hopefully we can turn it around when we get back home. It's tough being on the road nad losing, but that's no excuse. All the teams are pretty clumped together. We just have to push in with them,"
"This is how T20 games go. I played a good knock, but AB was too good," Rishabh Pant says. "Wicket was not so easy, so we thought we'd just concentrate on having a good partnership. Because of the dew, the pitch got better in the second innings. But that's part of the game. Every time you watch someone like Virat and AB bat, you see how easy they make it. I just try to learn from them. It was a new innovation, my scoops behind the wicket."
James B: "No sense of theatre whatsoever from Mandeep scoring runs. Has no chill as the youth would say."
The South African ace has frequently been forced to score tough runs in recent times, through injury or circumstances. Against Daredevils, he seemed to shed all that weight off his shoulders
Trent Boult has taken plenty of screamers in his career, but his IPL effort v RCB could just be the best ever
It was inconceivable after watching de Villiers bat on Saturday night that he could ever have had troubles with left-arm spin
The South Africa batsman's 39-ball 90, his highest IPL score in a chase, lifted RCB to their second win
Also, a deathly slow start from Daredevils, and de Villiers feasts on his former team once again