De Villiers lets sparks fly with fifty in losing cause
INDORE: AB de Villiers arrived two matches late for Royal Challengers Bangalore due to back trouble and showed what they had missed, blasting an unbeaten 46-ball 89 lift last year’s runners-up against Kings XI Punjab on Monday.
For all the brutal hitting in T20, it becomes extra special when the big names come to the party. And de Villiers is as big as it gets in the shortest format.
There have been some good knocks in the early stages of this IPL, but there is a magical quality about de Villiers, the man who hits 360 degrees and conjures up sixes where even a singles seems non-existent.
Indore was waiting in anticipation on Monday to see a big gun fire, but it was Chris Gayle. The big Jamaican needed 25 runs to become the first T20 batsman to complete 10,000 runs. However, he was not included, and de Villiers, stepping up as his replacement, turned batting captain to his misfiring team.
AWESOME HITTING
It wasn’t a typical de Villiers innings taken as a whole, but the awesome hitting in the end very much was. In skipper Virat Kohli’s and the South African’s absence, RCB’s batting clearly struggled in the first two games.
De Villiers’ 22nd IPL fifty came off 34 balls, as he had to rebuild an innings that was tottering at 80 for four after 16 overs.
NINE SIXES
But he hammered five more sixes --- de Villiers hit nine of the team’s 11 sixes --- as 68 runs flowed in the final four overs.
De Villiers came in at No. 3 after RCB skipper Shane Watson’s first over dismissal. He hit the first ball he faced against Sandeep Sharma for four, and Mohit Sharma for a six in the next over.
He even promised to become the first to a century this IPL before ending up with the second highest score, behind KKR’s Chris Lynn (93), going from 51 to 89 in 12 deliveries.