Royal Challengers Bengaluru 250 for 3 (David 70*, Paddikal 50, Patidar 48*, Dube 1-30) beat Chennai Super Kings 207 (Sarfaraz 50, Veer 43, Bhuvneshwar 3-41, Abhinandan 2-30) by 43 runs
David and Patidar faced 44 balls between them and sent 14 of those disappearing over the boundary. The entire CSK batting line-up could manage only 11 sixes.
The calm
After being asked to bat, RCB needed 20 balls for the first boundary of the day. Both Matt Henry and Khaleel Ahmed hit hard lengths and made scoring hard for Phil Salt and Virat Kohli. It was Anshul Kamboj who provided CSK with the opening breakthrough when he had Kohli caught by Shivam Dube at long-on for 28 off 18 balls. Dube redeemed himself after dropping Kohli on 7 at mid-on off Khaleel Ahmed in the third over.
With the ball not coming onto the bat, Salt laboured to 15 off 16 balls. A brace of swatted fours off Kamboj then freed him up, but Shivam Dube, bowling for the first time in this season, struck with his third ball to stop Salt on 46 off 30 balls with a cutter that was banged into the pitch.
Padikkal, who had dashed out the blocks on the opening day of the season, wasn’t allowed to do so on this track. He started slowly as well – he was on 17 off 16 balls at one point – but then put then put the pedal to the floor and converted it into a 28-ball half-century. It was his second successive fifty, but it certainly wasn’t the story of the day.
The storm
David and Patidar came together at 151 for 3 at the start of the 15th over after Overton had knocked Padikkal over by cranking it up to 148kph. The carnage created by David and Patidar turned out to be the story of the day.
David was particularly brutal on Overton, taking him for a sequence 6,4,6,6,6 in the 19th over that yielded 30 runs. All of those hits had the Chinnaswamy in a frenzy. One of those even had Kohli off his seat in the dressing room and applauding David. The last of that sequence was a 106-metre monster six that disappeared out of the ground.
At the other end, Patidar had the best seat to this six-hitting show. He didn’t face a single ball for almost three overs between overs 17 and 20. In all, he faced just five balls since the 16th over. Prior to that, he had played some special shots of his own. Like the cover-driven six off Noor Ahmad in the 12th over. Like the scythed six over the same region off a low full-toss from Khaleel four overs later. Patidar finished with an unbeaten 48 off 19 balls.
Full report to follow…
