Five in five, Royal Challengers Bengaluru have mastered the art of winning away matches.
It’s striking how RCB transform into a much more sorted unit when on the road as compared to their home matches at the Chinnaswamy. On Sunday in Mullanpur, it was Punjab Kings who bowed to RCB’s away prowess. The visitors wrapped up a convincing seven-wicket win, just about a day and a half after going down to the same opponents in Bengaluru.
Once the RCB bowlers played their part, restricting Punjab to 157/6, the game slipped into the Virat Kohli zone. The 36-year-old, adored as “The Chasemaster”, paced his innings to perfection, making 73 not out off 54 balls to guide his team home with seven balls to spare.
Planned process
When in a chase, Kohli is often like an artist who has been perfecting his skills for years and has attained unthinkable mastery over the whole process. He knows when to attack, when to defend, when to frustrate opponents with tireless running between the wickets. It’s all like a well-researched thesis covering all possible aspects of the subject.
So even after Phil Salt was dismissed in the very first over of the chase, Kohli remained unflustered. He had everything chalked out in his brain. He kept the scoreboard in motion, but happily let a more Devdutt Padikkal take more of the strike. As a result, RCB reaped a 103-run second-wicket stand in quick time.
After Padikkal was out for a well-made 61 off 35 balls, Kohli changed gears, took the lead in the chase as the set batsmen at the crease and in the process, notched up his 67th IPL fifty, the most by any batter. RCB cakewalked past the target, with Jitesh Sharma making a statement of domination as he got the winning runs with a clean six over midwicket.
Simple & effective
Earlier, the RCB bowlers, led by spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma, reined in Punjab after the hosts had got off to a fine start. Nothing fancy, they bowled a tight, disciplined line to make run-scoring difficult.
Kohli was superb, but the credit for the win goes to the RCB bowlers.
