Dubai, Sept 29 (Agecncy) Yuzvendra Chahal and Shahbaz Ahmed were at the heart of a dominating performance from Royal Challengers Bangalore who crushed the Rajasthan Royals in Dubai for their seventh win of the season. RCB’s spinners helped the team come back after conceding 91 in the first 10 overs, taking four wickets between them. The Royals collapsed thereafter, losing 8 for 49 to fold for a sub-par total of 149, which RCB chased down with 17 balls and seven wickets to spare. Three games into the second leg of IPL 2021, RCB had conceded 82, 71 and 57 runs for the first wicket. Today Evin Lewis and Yashasvi Jaiswal put on 77 in 8.2 manic overs after being put in to bat. Jaiswal, with his two sixes and three fours, scored a more sedate 31 off 22.
RCB hit 26 in the first two overs of the chase with Virat Kohli hitting three fours in the first over of the chase, off former teammate Chris Morris. Devdutt Padikkal joined the boundary-hitting spree rather belatedly but once he’d been reprieved by ‘keeper Sanju Samson, quickly caught up with his captain with fours off Mustafizur Rahman. Thoughts of a reprise of their 181-run stand from the last game against Royals though had to be put on hold as Mustafizur cleaned Padikkal up. In the next over, Kohli was dismissed run-out by an accurate throw from Riyan Parag, who had put down the RCB captain earlier in the over. At 58 for 2 in the seventh over, the Royals had RCB in a bit of a wobble but didn’t have enough of a score to truly apply the squeeze.
With no run-rate pressure on them, one-drop KS Bharat and Glenn Maxwell eased themselves into a partnership, turning the strike over and finding the occasional boundary. Maxwell hit a boundary each off Kartik Tyagi and Rahul Tewatia to get his innings going while Bharat walked across slog-swept Chris Morris for six, leading the South African to chirp at him. Maxwell stepped in to the support of his young batting partner and plundered 22 off Morris’s last over to give him unflattering figures of 0 for 50 from four overs. Bharat fell just before the finish line for 44 while Maxwell made it back-to-back fifties, remaining unbeaten on 50 off 30 balls.
Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 149/9 in 20 overs (Evin Lewis 58, Yashasvi Jaiswal 31; Harshal Patel 3-34, Y. Chahal 2-18, Shahbaz Ahmed 2-10) lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore 153/3 in 17.1 overs (Glenn Maxwell 50*, KS Bharat 44; Mustafizur Rahman 2-20) by seven wickets.