AB de Villiers’ crucial innings with the bat and Harshal Patel’s five-wicket haul helps Royal Challengers Bangalore to clinch victory against defending Champions in the first game of IPL 2021.
AB de Villiers hits the ground running straight away by scored a quickfire half-century to get Royal Challengers Bangalore off the mark in IPL 2021. The South African played a vital inning of 48 runs in a nail-biting clash against Mumbai Indians at MA Chidambaram Stadium. RCB eventually chased down 160 on the final ball of the innings to win the game by two wickets.
At one point, RCB was cruising when Glenn Maxwell and Virat Kohli had stitched 50 run partnership for the third wicket during the chase. However, some excellent bowling from Jasprit Bumrah and Marco Jansen triggered a mini-collapse in RCB’s lower middle order. However, the South African batsman held one end and played big shots to bring the equation to just over run a ball in the final over.
De Villiers was dismissed in the fourth ball of the over when RCB needed two runs from two deliveries. Harshal Patel and Mohammed Siraj made sure that RCB see out the win by taking two singles in the remaining deliveries of the over. Apart from De Villiers, Maxwell and Kohli played a big hand in the chase. The Australian batsman particularly looked fluent during his innings of 39 runs.
Earlier in the evening, RCB won the toss and decided to field. Mumbai endured a cautious start and lost Rohit Sharma early due to a mix-up while running between the wickets. Chris Lynn scored 49 runs and stitched a half-century partnership with Surya Kumar Yadav to accelerate between middle overs.
However, Mumbai lost the plot completely in the second half of the innings. They lost wickets at regular intervals due to some attacking bowling changes by Kohli. However, the star of the show was Harshal Patel for RCB. He bowled at the back end of the innings and took crucial wickets of Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard. He ended up with a five-wicket haul by taking three wickets for just one run in the final over. Kyle Jamieson also had an impressive debut with the ball, while Siraj bowled an economical spell. RCB got the required start, while Mumbai continues the trend of losing the first game of the season. They are yet to win the first game of the new campaign since 2013.
Just ONE run off the last over. Fifer and an economy of 6️⃣.8️⃣.
You’re a 🌟, Harshal! 👏🏻 👏🏻 #PlayBold #WeAreChallengers #MIvRCB #DareToDream pic.twitter.com/fazyvpwSTl
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 9, 2021
Scorecard:
Mumbai Indians: 159/9 (Lynn 49 (35), Suryakumar Yadav 31 (23), Harshal Patel 5/27, Washington Sundar 1/7)
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 160/8 ( AB de Villiers 48 (27), Glenn Maxwell 39 (28), Jasprit Bumrah 2/26, Marco Jansen 2/28)