Champions League SRL | RCB vs Jamaica Evaluation Chart - Jerome Taylor, Zahir Khan hand RCB embarrassing defeat

ByAnirudh Suresh, SportsCafe Editor

05/08/2020

Royal Challengers Bangalore had no answer to the pace of Jerome Taylor and the mystery spin of Zahir Khan, as the Bengaluru-based franchise slumped to an embarrassing six-wicket defeat at the hands of Jamaica. Tallawahs’ win also marks the first defeat of the tournament for Bangalore.

Match Review

After winning the toss and opting to bat first, RCB’s innings had disaster written all over it after they lost three wickets inside the first powerplay and at one stage, at 45/5, it looked like they were going to fold under a score of 80. A 38-run stand between Shivam Dube and Chris Morris was the only shining light in the entire innings, but even that wasn’t enough as the Reds succumbed to the pace of Taylor and the spin of Zahir to fold for just 112 in under 20 overs.

The Tallawahs got off to the worst start possible, in response, losing Gayle off the very first delivery, but brisk contributions from the trio of Glenn Phillips, Dwayne Smith and Liton Das meant that they swayed out of harm’s way within the blink of an eye. Once they weathered the early storm, a chase of 113 was going to be a cakewalk and Chadwick Walton provided the finishing touch to guide the Caribbean side to a comfortable six-wicket victory.

Turning Point

Losing Virat Kohli on the first ball post the powerplay turned out to be a body blow that RCB never really recovered from. Despite losing three wickets inside the first six overs, they were quietly confident of posting a fighting total with Kohli still around, but all hope was shattered within a matter of seconds as Zahir Khan out-foxed the RCB skipper to get him stumped on the very first ball after the field restrictions were lifted.

Highs and Lows

Any inning featuring Doctor Dwayne Smith is bound to entertain the fans and the all-rounder certainly did not disappoint today. The highlight of the entire game turned out to be his blitz right at the end of the chase, where he smacked 6, 4 and 4 in three consecutive deliveries off Moeen Ali to leave the Tallahwas supporters in a frenzy.

RCB boast of one of the strongest batting line-ups in the world on paper, but reputation is of no use if you cannot justify it on the field. The top 5 RCB batters - Kohli and ABD included - combinedly scored 25 runs today, which was one less than the tally of Chadwick Walton. Let’s just say that if I had a dollar for every time the RCB batsmen disappointed me, I’d be a millionaire by now.

Rating Charts

Powerplay exploitation: RCB 4/10 and Jamaica 7/10

Losing early wickets in a T20 match is equivalent to conceding two goals inside the first 10 mins of play and by losing three wickets inside the first six overs, RCB sealed their own fate within minutes of the commencement of the match. It was an appalling display of batsmanship and incredibly, 12 of the 34 runs RCB scored in the powerplay were extras. I mean, could it get any worse than this?

Jamaica were rocked by the dismissal of Gayle on the very first ball of the chase, but the duo of Phillips and Das did not let the Big Man’s wicket rattle them as they continued to punish the RCB bowlers whenever they had a chance at their disposal. The very second over of their chase yielded 14 runs - after the first one yielded just three - and the duo struck a total of six boundaries - including a couple of sixes - in the last five overs of the powerplay to ensure that they crippled RCB’s hopes of a comeback as soon as possible. By the end of the sixth over, the required run-rate had come down to 4.78.

Middle-overs manoeuvring: RCB 5/10 and Jamaica 8/10

RCB lost Virat Kohli on the very first ball of their ‘middle overs’ - guess that should give you a hint of how overs 7-15 went for them. Either way, despite losing both Kohli and Moeen Ali inside the 9th over, the duo of Dube and Morris batted out the majority of the middle-overs without losing a wicket and ensured that the side did not get bowled out for an embarrassingly low total. 53-3 was what they managed in this phase; not great, but not too terrible when you look at the kind of powerplay they ended up having.

Jamaica’s middle-overs were a pretty dull phase in the match, for they were going to be the obvious winners after getting through the powerplay overs unscathed, but they still had a job at hand and both Phillips and DR Smith played with the utmost professionalism to ensure that the RCB bowlers did not have a sniff at any point. They did so by milking around the regular spinners Chahal and Sundar, scoring at 6 RPO off their bowling, and pouncing on the part-time spinner Moeen Ali, collecting 18 off the only over he bowled.

Death bowling: Jamaica 8/10 and RCB na/10

With both Chris Morris and Washington Sundar threatening to go berserk, the Jamaican bowlers did a ridiculously good job to concede just 25 runs off the final five. Interestingly, a wicket fell exactly on the third ball of the 16th, 17th and 18th over and at one point, it looked like someone had cast some kind of a spell on the RCB batters. Two boundaries were all that the Tallawahs bowlers gave away in the entirety of the death overs. A perfect display of death bowling.

Two balls were all RCB bowled at the death and well, despite picking a wicket on one of those deliveries, they are not going to be rated today. Here’s hoping that they stretch the match to the 20th over in their next game.

Match Frenzy O Meter - Bad

At the end of the powerplay of RCBs innings, the match had CJ saying “Oh s***, here we go again” written all over it and unfortunately, it exactly panned out the way every neutral feared. Definitely not a game worthy of taking place in a ‘Champions League’ tournament.