Samson’s 92run blitz upstages Kohli’s knock
No. 3 batsman helps his team score insurmountable 217
BANGALORE: Sanju Samson and leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal lifted former champions Rajasthan Royals to a 19–run victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Samson blasted an unbeaten 92 off 45 deliveries, the highest score of this IPL season to lift the 2008 winners to 217/4 after RCB skipper Virat Kohli maintained the trend of teams winning the toss preferring to bowl first and chase down targets.
However, Rajasthan Royals left even the formidable RCB batting line-up with mission impossible as the hosts were left to achieve a record chase to win their second game at home this season. In end, RCB were restricted to 198/6 despite a valiant unbeaten by Mandeep Singh (47* off 25 balls) and Washington Sundar’s 35. It was all over after the home team were left needing 36 off the final over.
RR leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal, member of the Karnataka Ranji team, turned a Virat Kohli-powered (57 – 30 b, 7x4, 2x6) chase on its head by claiming the two biggest scalps. He had Kohli as well as AB de Villiers (20) caught in the deep to leave the chase in trouble.
Royal Challengers Bangalore managed only one home win all of IPL 2017, when they finished bottom of the table, and were again left to wait as Rajasthan won their second game in three outings.
Samson, the Kerala batsman who was bought back by RR in the player auction, belted 10 sixes and two fours in a display of power-hitting, and never threw away his wickets.
His 73-run fourth-wicket partnership with Jos Buttler (23) after a 49-ball stand with Ben Stokes (27) for the previous wicket set it up for the end as RR hammered 60 runs in the final three overs.
Umesh Yadav, RCB’S bowling hero in the four-wicket win over Kings XI on Friday, turned the villain on Sunday. He conceded 59 runs in his four wicketless overs, and suffered the ignominy of going for 17 runs in the final over as Samson and Rahul Tripathi waded into his bowling.
RCB were on target as long as Virat Kohli was in the middle. Kohli, who hit his 31st IPL fifty, though fell to spin
for the third time in a row this season with Gopal bowling an outstanding spell to power-hitters, returning two for 22 in four overs. AB de Villiers was almost stumped the fourth ball he faced and would have been run out after racing down the pitch but for wicketkeeper Buttler fumbling on both occasions.
Rajasthan Royals’ catching in the deep was perfect though, with Ben Stokes’ leaping effort getting rid of Brendon Mccullum (4) in the first over after Ajinkya Rahane started with off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham, also a local player. RCB bowlers seemed to have a grip on the innings until Samson, who struck his fourth IPL half-century exploded in the later stages
of the innings.