CHENNAI: It was the second ball of the fifth over in the first innings. Virat Kohli was on strike and he was up against Mark Wood. Until that point, all the indications of what had happened in the Royal Challengers Bangalore innings against Lucknow Super Giants pointed to one thing. It was a typical M Chinnaswamy Stadium surface that had very little for the bowlers. Kohli had driven Avesh Khan on the rise through the off-side. But the real test was going to be against Wood’s pace.
The England pacer ran in and followed Kohli who was moving away to make room, pitched it full at 149.2kph but the batter used his bottom hand to send it downtown. End result, four. If there were any doubts on how things were going go from thereon, the next ball cleared it all. A short of length delivery at pace and Kohli stood tall in his stance, used his hands to whip it over the midwicket boundary. By the end of the powerplay, RCB were 56/0, but the real mayhem didn’t begin until the 14th over.
Between overs six to 13, RCB would only manage 48 runs, with Kohli and skipper Faf du Plessis taking it relatively slow. Kohli would get out for 61 runs from 44 balls but that in hindsight worked well for the home side. Joined by Glenn Maxwell, Du Plessis took charge. The Australian smashed a six and a four off Amit Mishra before Du Plessis swatted Ravi Bishnoi over extra cover for a six. That was just the beginning of what was about to come.
The next delivery was literally sent out of the ground by Du Plessis, a 115m six to set the stadium alive. At the other end, Maxwell, too, had no chill as the all-rounder pulled Avesh over the ropes. Jaydev Unadkat was sliced through off-side, tonked over the cow corner, hammered to square-leg and third-man region all in the same over, conceding 23 runs in the 18th over. Maxwell went even further to clobber Avesh over his head before slicing a short and wide delivery from the pacer over the ropes through point for a six. The duo scored 99 runs from 36 balls in the overs between 14-19, taking RCB past the 200-run mark after 19 overs.
Once again, Wood was at the centre of it all for the final over as he did against Kohli. This time, however, Wood showed why he is rated as one of the best in the business. He almost nailed every delivery, conceding just nine runs as RCB finished with 212/2. Between two Wood overs, RCB had played two contrasting phases of T20 innings which meant their score was not enough on that surface against a power-packed batting unit that is Lucknow.
Barring LSG skipper KL Rahul (18 off 20 balls), every other batter — Marcus Stoinis smashed 65 of just 30 balls, Nicholas Pooran went berserk with a 19-ball 62 — played the way Maxwell and Du Plessis did together as they got across the line in the final ball of the match with one wicket in hand.
Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 212/2 in 20 overs (Du Plessis 79 n.o, Maxwell 59, Kohli 61) lost to Lucknow Super Giants 213/9 in 20 overs (Stoinis 65, Pooran 62, Badoni 30).
