Virat Kohli after the loss to Mumbai Indians said that he loves the position his team is in, the position here is RCB’s requirement to win the remaining 4 games to qualify for the playoff spot. The performance his team showed up with on Saturday was remarkable, to say the least, not only did his team bat Gujarat Lions out of the game but did it with such ease that it was shocking how good can a side be on its day.
As a side who is about to start a playoff run who has to win all their games, you have two options which is going ahead & win the game convincingly and the other way is to go & decimate the opposition which also strikes fear in the other teams you will play. RCB chose the second option and boy did they do it in some style.
Since this game was done and dusted in the first innings itself, I would just review the first innings cause there is no point doing the second innings given the game was over by then.
1st innings
Gujarat Lions Bowling
Dhawal Kulkarni gave away 2 and 9 runs in his first 2 overs while also picking up the wicket of the “dangerous” Gayle (yea he is out of form, but would you really take the risk of him being there for long?), those 2 early overs was the bright spot for him as his 3rd over went for 22 runs amid the Kohli & DeVilliers onslaught. Despite that Kulkarni managed to achieve a positive WPA of 0.068, which is an achievement itself.
Dwayne Bravo bowled the 8th, 14th & 18th over of the RCB innings in those overs he conceded 9,7 & 30 respectively. Let’s look at the first 2 overs and then look at the 3rd over of his spell. The first over came at a time when Kohli & DeVilliers (henceforth known as Dynamic Duo) were adjusting to the slow nature of the pitch, the second over came amid a serious onslaught from the Dynamic Duo the over was sandwiched between a 12 run over from Jadeja and a 14 run over from Tambe so credit where it’s due to Bravo for managing to shield his team from that onslaught. The last over well it was a time when Kohli & DeVilliers just decided it is time for fun, not only did Bravo concede 30 runs even the next over went for 30 which just shows that when the Dynamic Duo were in form no one can stop them. For the first 2 overs, Bravo earned a WPA of 0.061 amid all that chaos.
Ravindra Jadeja (WPA -0.051) had a negative impact on his team’s chances but he bowled 3 of his 4 overs from overs 10-20 when RCB scored 172 runs during this period he conceded only 31 runs. For a bowled to concede at 10 an over when the rest of the side is being pummeled for 20 an overs is a remarkable feat.
The rest of the bowlers were just cannon fodder for Kohli & DeVilliers, there was nothing much they could do when they both were in such a murderous mood.
RCB Batting
When a side scores 248 runs with 2 batsmen scoring centuries there is nothing much you can say about how they have batted, those numbers are enough to paint a picture of what mayhem the team might have caused. RCB scored 75% of their runs in boundaries with a 20 6’s and 17 4’s, this just goes to show the brute force RCB had at the crease in Kohli & DeVilliers.
Chris Gayle failed yet again and is now more like a liability to the side than an asset, he didn’t start off well and the early overs, when runs were not easy to come by, happened when he was at the crease.
Virat Kohli started off slowly and was looking to adjust to the pace of the pitch which was on the slower side than normal but still a good batting track, Kohli scored 52 runs in 41 balls and did it with minimum risk which was a major contributor to his negative WPA of -0.018, but Kohli did what he always does best and accelerated from that point to score a century a sequence which went something like this 4 6 2 1 6 4 6 6 6 2 2 6 6 W, which saw him score 57 runs in the next 14 balls. His acceleration helped AB DeVilliers nail a sure win for RCB. What’s more remarkable is Kohli said he loves pressure and he did perform under pressure yet again when his team needed it.
AB DeVilliers (WPA 0.581) 129 runs in 52 balls, 10 x 4s, 12 x 6s. Yet another freakish performance from DeVilliers who is now giving these performances in every series. Not only did he dominate the Gujarat Lions attack, he made them look like school boys. His quick adjustment to the pitch and then his array of shots being something of pure beauty which is displayed when he bats. DeVilliers on top of that was able to maintain his pace of the innings throughout which just shows how good a batsman he is, if you just needed more prove.
Also here is the Win Probability of RCB as the game progressed.
