Royal Challengers Bangalore put in a solid performance and won five out of seven games while one match ended without a result. In their last game of the season, Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by four wickets and it gave their fans something to cheer
The Royal Challengers Bangalore had a disastrous start to their IPL 2019 season when they lost six consecutive games. The team's over-reliance on Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers hurt them and heavy losses to Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad at the start of the season badly dented their net run-rate.
However, in the second half of the season, Royal Challengers Bangalore put in a solid performance and won five out of seven games while one match ended without a result. In their last game of the season, Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by four wickets and it gave their fans something to cheer. However, it was another forgettable season overall for RCB.
Let's look at the factors that helped RCB pick up a consolation win.
With SRH in a must-win scenario, Wriddhiman Saha and Martin Guptill came out firing on all cylinders. The duo strung together a partnership of 46 runs for the first wicket but it was an incomplete task once again as wickets kept tumbling and the Hyderabad batsmen couldn't capitalise. Navdeep Saini drew first blood, getting rid of Saha, who hit four boundaries to score 20. Guptill was starting to find his feet, having scored a 23-ball 30 after which Washington Sundar got him out. Sundar got his second wicket in the form of Manish Pandey.
After losing three quick wickets, Vijay Shankar joined his captain Kane Williamson in the middle. Shankar got out for 27 and Williamson took the onus of injecting impetus in the innings. The SRH skipper was lacklustre before this game, but he scored his maiden fifty of the season off 38 balls against RCB. He remained not out on 70 off 43 with five fours and four sixes.
However, he was short of a partner as Sunrisers were able to add mere five runs in the penultimate over. In the final over, Williamson finally managed to stamp his authority on the opposition and smacked Bhuvneshwar Kumar for 28 runs, which took the visitors' total to 175. Seeing how the Chinnaswamy pitch has played in the second innings, Hyderabad was still 20-25 runs short.
The Royal Challengers had a rather abysmal start to their run chase. Bhuvneshwar sent back Parthiv Patel for a golden duck in the first over itself. Khaleel Ahmed struck a body blow when he dismissed Kohli, the RCB skipper, who already had struck two boundaries and a mighty six. RCB's innings turned from bad to worse after de Villiers edged one off Bhuvneshwar and the hosts were reduced to 20/3 in 2.5 overs.
Thereafter, Shimron Hetmyer and Gurkeerat Singh Mann took charge and got RCB back into the match. Hetmyer notched up a half-century off 32 deliveries. At the other end, Gurkeerat got to his fifty too off 39 balls. The duo brought up a century stand off 64 balls.
However, once the team reached the three-figure mark and Hetmyer registered his maiden IPL fifty, Sunrisers had a chance to redeem themselves and come back strongly. In the 13th over of the innings, Hetmyer lost his concentration and smashed the ball towards the fielder twice in the over. The first shot went straight towards deep extra cover fielder Pandey, who lost the ball in the floodlights. On the very next delivery, Hetmyer edged one straight to Yusuf Pathan, who misjudged it completely, giving Hetmyer another lifeline.
Hetmyer was able to capitalise on this and eventually helped his team reach close to the posted total. In the last few overs though, the hosts lost a bit of momentum, but Hetmyer and Gurkeerat had done enough for the team to cross the line comfortably.
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