HYDERABAD, MARCH 3
Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis smashed half centuries to give Royal Challengers Bangalore a perfect start in cricket's Indian Premier League with an eight-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians on Sunday.
Rajasthan Royals showed plenty of batting muscle at the top of the order while Yuzvendra Chahal grabbed 4-17 in a resounding 72-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the day's other game.
Kohli blazed an unbeaten 82 off 49 balls and du Plessis smacked 73 off 43 as the two openers enjoyed 11 sixes and 11 fours between them in Bangalore's winning run-chase of 172-2 in 16.2 overs.
After being put into bat, Tilak Varma formed the nucleus of Mumbai's under-par score of 171-7 with an unbeaten 46-ball 84. Leg-spinner Karn Sharma got 2-32 and Mohammed Siraj 1-21 despite the latter bowling the first 11-ball over in IPL history that included four successive wides.
"I am very happy with how things went today," Kohli said. "The new ball was a bit tricky, but we shifted the momentum by taking them down with the new ball."
Jofra Archer (0-33) dropped Kohli on seven when he couldn't hold onto a return catch off his first ball this season. The Indian batting maestro went on to share a blistering 148-run opening wicket stand with du Plessis off 89 balls against both pace and spin.
Kohli got another life soon after completing his 45th half century in an illustrious IPL career when Hrithik Shokeen dropped a sitter at midwicket before fast bowler Arshad Khan outfoxed du Plessis with a slower delivery and had him caught at long-on.
Glenn Maxwell slammed two sixes off the three balls he faced and Kohli raised the victory with a straight six off Arshad to the delight of the home team fans.
Varma had entered inside the batting powerplay after Mumbai lost the big wickets of captain Rohit Sharma (1), Ishan Kishan (10) and Cameron Green (5). Mumbai further slipped to 48-4 when New Zealand off-spinner Michael Bracewell had Suryakumar Yadav (15) caught at point in the ninth over before Varma took charge in the death overs.
Varma put on a brisk 48 runs off the final 17 balls with Arshad remaining unbeaten on 15 as Harshal Patel (1-43) went for 32 off his final two overs and Siraj's 11-ball over cost him 16 runs.
RAJASTHAN THUMPS HYDERABAD
Jos Buttler plundered 54 off 22 balls inside the batting powerplay while his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal (54) and captain Sanju Samson (55) also scored heavily to contribute to Rajasthan's strong total of 203-5.
Hyderabad finished on a disappointing 131-8 after Trent Boult (2-21) dismantled the home team's batting by claiming two wickets in his first over before conceding a run and Chahal later ran through the middle-order, claiming the key wickets of Harry Brook (13) and Mayank Agarwal (27).
Chahal raised his wicket tally in the IPL to 170 – joint second most with Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga – when he had Adil Rashid stumped and then clean bowled Bhuvneshwar Kumar with a perfect googly.
"We knew 200 was a good score on this wicket," Chahal said. "My plan was to vary my pace and bowl stump to stump. It is always my strength. I am doing nothing new and I am just backing my strengths."
Hyderabad was in danger of getting bowled out for less than 100 before Abdul Samad remained unbeaten on run-a-ball 32 and Umran Malik played a cameo of 19 not out with two sixes and a boundary.
Earlier, Buttler smacked seven boundaries and three sixes in a whirlwind half century inside the first six overs before he played onto Afghan fast bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi as Rajasthan stormed to 122-1 in the first half of their batting innings.
Hyderabad bounced back despite Jaiswal and Samson cracking fine half-centuries with fast bowler Thangarasu Natarajan (2-23) stemming the flow of runs and Farooqi also making good in his return spell to finish with 2-41.
Farooqi broke the half-century stand between Jaiswal and Samson when he had the former caught at deep square leg and Natarajan deceived Samson with a slower delivery that had him caught at deep square leg in the penultimate over as Hyderabad conceded 81 runs in the last 10 overs.
"It is the first match of the season and there is a lot to improve," Hyderabad skipper Kumar said after the fast bowler conceded 36 runs in his three overs against Buttler's onslaught. "We need to execute our plans and hopefully we will get better."
