Royal Challengers Bangalore lost their second successive game on Tuesday after being outdone by an upbeat Rajasthan Royals. Chasing a simple total of 144 runs, RCB were bundled out for 115 runs in the 19th over.
Royals’ top run scorer Jos Buttler had a rare off day as he was dismissed on a single digit score. His opening partner Devdutt Padikkal was also dismissed for just seven runs. But an unbeaten 56 from Riyan Parag and small contributions from Sanju Samson and Ravichandran Ashwin took the Royals to a respectable but insufficient total of just 144, which seemed a simple task for RCB’s star-studded line-up.
But the Faf du Plessis side had yet another forgettable game with the bat and were all out for just 115 runs. 23 runs by the captain was the highest individual score from RCB’s batting line-up. The likes of Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Suyash Prabhudessai and Shahbaz Ahmed, all failed to score runs. For the Royals, Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Sen picked up seven wickets between them. Ashwin was also the most economical of all the bowlers, having conceded just 17 runs in his four overs.
Kohli’s lean patch has become a matter of discussion among the cricket fraternity but RCB skipper du Plessis has backed the former captain saying that all great players go through a run drought. He further said that they made Kohli open the innings on purpose.
“Great players go through phases like this and we wanted to get him in the game straightaway so that he doesn't sit in the sidelines and think about the game. It's a game of confidence,” du Plessis said.
RCB have now lost four of their nine games and are subsequently fifth in the points table. The Royals, on the other hand, are sitting right at the top of the points table with six wins in eight games.
Image credit: IPL
