da supremo： Shreyas Gopal’s 4 for 16 and K Gowtham’s all-round display sent RCB tumbling out of the tournament with a 30-run defeat in Jaipur
da prosport bet： The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy19-May-20184:31
Agarkar: Kohli’s leanest IPL season impact-wise
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsRoyal Challengers Bangalore had no one from Bengaluru in their XI. Rajasthan Royals had three. One didn’t get to bat or bowl, but the other two, Shreyas Gopal and K Gowtham, played starring roles in knocking their hometown franchise out of IPL 2018. The 30-run win kept Royals’ playoff hopes alive, though their fate will now be decided by how other teams perform over this final weekend of league fixtures.Shreyas, picked as Royals’ second legspinner on a pitch that they correctly read as a slow turner that would grow slower and turnier through the match, finished with career-best figures of 4 for 16. All his wickets – one caught-and-bowled and three stumpings – were earned via flight, dip and turn, virtues rewarded by this unusual IPL pitch where a good length was actually a good length for the spinners.Gowtham smacked 14 off five balls after coming in to bat in the last over of Royals’ innings and then conceded only six runs in two overs of offspin while dismissing Virat Kohli for 4 in the third over.A 55-run second-wicket partnership, between Parthiv Patel and AB de Villiers, followed Kohli’s dismissal, and put RCB in a strong position at 75 for 1 in the ninth over. But Shreyas ran through the middle order and the rest simply crumbled, the last nine wickets falling for only 59 runs.Royals go slow, quick, slowAjinkya Rahane wanted to bat first, and Kohli wanted to chase. Royals won the toss, both captains got their respective wishes, but it was Rahane who, with hindsight, read the conditions best. He sent in another new Royals opening combination, Jofra Archer pushed up the order to partner Rahul Tripathi.Archer fell early to a short ball from Umesh Yadav in the second over, a wicket-maiden, and Rahane walked in at No. 3. The second-wicket pair began a counterattack that took Royals from 2 for 1 at the two-over mark to 45 for 1 at the end of the Powerplay. Rahane and Tripathi hit three fours each in this period – the pick of them a straight-bat shovel over mid-on by Rahane off Umesh – and Tripathi a slog-swept six as well, off Moeen Ali.Thereafter, though, they cut down on the risks against spread-out fields on one of the larger outfields in the IPL, ostensibly to keep wickets in hand and not expose Royals’ lack of batting depth. Only one four came from the start of the seventh over to the end of the 11th, with the bulk of the 35 runs in that period coming via singles to the deep fielders, singles RCB weren’t too fussed about conceding.3:01
‘Tripathi knows how to bat under pressure’ – Rahane
Klaasen, Gowtham make up for Umesh’s strikesTripathi reached fifty in the 12th over and celebrated by stepping out and hitting Colin de Grandhomme for a straight six. Twenty-one came off two overs, and the momentum titled slightly Royals’ way, before Umesh came back into the attack and turned the game again. Rahane fell lbw for 33 off 31 – he only made 14 off 17 after the Powerplay – and Sanju Samson chipped the next ball straight to midwicket.Royals’ depth was going to be tested now, with 6.4 overs still left. They passed the test on this occasion, with Klaasen scoring 32 off 21 with some stunning shots – the best of them a carved six over backward point off a wide yorker from Mohammed Siraj – and Gowtham clouting Tim Southee for two sixes in the last over. Twenty-eight came off the last two overs, and Royals finished on 164 for 5.De Villiers versus RoyalsKohli likes to play himself in with percentage shots but the allure of lifting RCB’s net run rate above Mumbai Indians’ – they would have done so had they won in 15.5 overs or less – may perhaps have been playing on his mind. He tried a couple of back-away cuts – iffy shots on a pitch without a great deal of bounce – in Gowtham’s first over and missed, and fell in his second over, charging out and looking to hit against the line.In walked de Villiers, who effortlessly slipped into gear. Three fours came off the fourth over, bowled by Archer – the pick of them a back-foot punch through the covers – and another in the fifth, bowled by Ben Laughlin. With Parthiv finding the boundary regularly as well, RCB were cruising, if not quite on course for their net-run-rate target. After eight overs, they were 74 for 1.Just around that time, however, Royals’ legspinners began bowling in tandem and finding appreciable amounts of turn. De Villiers was still batting on another planet – he greeted Ish Sodhi with a reverse-swept four, and pulled the next ball for another boundary – but RCB crumbled around him. Parthiv and Moeen Ali fell to Shreyas in the ninth over, Mandeep charged at him and missed a legbreak in the 11th, and de Grandhomme edged Sodhi to slip in the 12th, driving hard at an inviting, wide legbreak.Then came the defining ball of the match, a deliciously dipping googly that beat the inside edge of de Villiers’ groping bat and dragged his back foot out of the crease. Klaasen completed his third nonchalant stumping of the game, and RCB’s fate was all but sealed.
