IPL 2017 | Rishabh Pant's spectacular knock in vain as RCB win first game of the season

Brief scores : Royal Challengers Bangalore 157/8 ( Kedar Jadhav 69, Shane Watson 24; Chris Morris 3/21, Zaheer Khan 2/31) beat Delhi Daredevils 142/9 (Rishabh Pant 57, Sam Billings 25; Pawan Negi 2/3, Billy Stanlake 2/29) by 15 runs.

Coming back to their fortress, the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Royal Challengers Bangalore - hit by a spate of injury concerns - squared off against Delhi Daredevils, who have also been hit by an injury plague of their own. In the battle between two injury-riddled teams, it was Shane Watson, who called it right, but, surprisingly, decided to bat first - an anomaly in the Indian Premier League.

Gayle fails to fire again as RCB’s top order struggles continue

Promoting himself up the order to open the innings with Chris Gayle, Shane Watson set the pace early on with two boundaries in the very first over. Gayle, too, joined the party by hitting Chris Morris for a boundary over cover, but it was short-lived as his Protean namesake got rid of the West Indian by catching him at mid-off for just 6. After the dismissal, Watson was expected to play the anchor role, while Mandeep Singh was expected to force the pace. The 25-year-old did just that by hitting Pat Cummins for two consecutive boundaries but a couple of balls later, Cummins exacted his revenge bowling out the Indian for 12. Sensing the ball skidding a lot due to the dew, Zaheer brought Shahbaz Nadeem to the play and he reaped the faith immediately by dismissing Watson and leaving the Kohli-and-ABD-less RCB with 55/3 in the ninth over. 

Kedar Jadhav shines to take RCB to a good total

The early wickets, however, had little impact on Kedar Jadhav, who came in to bat after the dismissal of Mandeep Singh as he targeted Amit Mishra with surgical precision. With two sixes and two fours, Kedar extracted 24 runs in the 13th over of him, making Stuart Binny a mere spectator at the other end. Jadhav then shuffled across to send Carlos Brathwaite for a six and a four on his way to completing his fifty. Returning for his second spell, in the 15th over, Zaheer accounted for Binny, bringing an end to a 66-run partnership and in his next over sent Jadhav back as well after running out Vishnu Vinod. Even though Jadhav had put RCB in a commanding position of 142/6 in 17 overs, the following batsmen failed to build on that and could only accumulate 15 runs in last three overs, setting Delhi a target of 158 runs.

Delhi get off to a slow and steady start

Chasing 158 was not going to be that a difficult task for the Daredevils’ batting line-up on the batsman-friendly Bangalore strip, but the two openers Sam Billings and Aditya Tare chose the caution over aggression and got only 32 runs from the first four overs. Taking advantage of that, Tymal Mills, in his very first over, bowled Tare to give RCB their first taste of success. Post Tare’s dismissal, RCB slowly tried to get into the groove as Delhi were caught betwixt and between. Nair’s dismissal didn’t help their cause as well as they were pushed to 55-3 from 33-0. Joining Sanju Samson in the middle, bereaved Rishabh Pant, who decided to feature in the game after attending his father’s funeral, hit Iqbal Abdullah for a six on the very ball he faced to give DD hopes of a comeback. With Samson and Pant in the middle, Delhi needed an achievable 79 runs from last 10 overs to win the game. 

Pant’s innings goes in vain as Negi takes RCB home

Just as it looked like Delhi were going to walk away with the points, Stanlake struck again dismissing Samson and putting the game right in the balance again. But it was Pant at the other end who was proving to be the danger man as he smashed Watson for a six before picking up 10 runs off two Iqbal Abdulla deliveries. But the game wasn’t done yet as Abdulla dismissed Morris and Chahal, who finished with figures of 1/19, cleaned up hard-hitting Carlos Brathwaite to put Delhi under pressure again as the visitors needed to score at 9 runs an over to win their opening game. Pant and Cummins hit boundaries in consecutive overs to ease the pressure but yet again Bangalore fought back with the latter’s wicket to take control over the game. But Pant was in no mood to give up as he kept getting runs on the board going past his half-century but, on the other side, Watson gave away just two runs leaving Delhi needing 19 runs of the last over. With the pressure mounting, Pant was eventually dismissed on the first ball of the last over as RCB secured a 15-run win to put their first points on the board.