Royal Challengers Bengaluru 203 for 4 (Kohli 69*, Padikkal 61, Payne 2-35) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 201 for 9 (Kishan 80, Aniket 43, Duffy 3-22, Shepherd 3-54) by six wickets
Duffy duffs up SRH’s top order
After sussing out the conditions early – the new ball wasn’t swinging for long – Duffy kept hitting a hard length and kept attacking the stumps to discomfit SRH’s heavy-hitters. All of Abhishek, Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy were out, failing to control their pull shots off that length. During those early exchanges, some balls also stopped on batters, and Duffy used that to his advantage.
Kishan fires on IPL captaincy debut
Kishan countered Duffy’s strikes, racing away to a 27-ball fifty. In the recent past, IPL captaincy has forced some India batters to dial down their aggression, but Kishan continued to bat with the freedom that was central to India winning the T20 World Cup earlier this month.
When the ball was doing a bit early doors, he started with a classical cover-driven four off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the powerplay and then hit T20 mode when he lined up Abhinandan Singh, the other RCB debutant, for 30 off 13 balls. When RCB went to spin in the form of Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma, Kishan lined them up as well.
It felt like RCB would need something special to stop Kishan and that something special came via a one-handed screamer from Phil Salt near the point boundary at the end of the 16th over.
Aniket’s cameo
Aniket Verma then produced a knock that was just as electric as Kishan’s. He faced 18 balls and sent seven of those disappearing to the boundary. Aniket wasn’t just about power. When Bhuvneshwar floated a slower, shorter knuckle ball, Aniket held his shape for long enough and ramped it over the keeper. After clearing the fence four times, he holed out in the penultimate over of the innings while attempting his fifth six.
RCB cruise in chase
Jaydev Unadkat struck in his first over when he removed Salt for eight, but Padikkal and Kohli then got together and turned the chase into a cakewalk. By the time their partnership ended at 101 off 45 balls, RCB’s asking rate had dropped to eight.
Padikkal, who was picked ahead of RCB’s new recruit Venkatesh Iyer, dashed out the blocks, hitting three fours and three sixes off his first 11 balls. He carried on to bring up his fastest IPL fifty, off 21 balls.
No Hazlewood? No problem for RCB. No Cummins? Plenty of problems already for SRH.
Deivarayan Muthu is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
