SIRAJ MAKES IT A GREAT KNIGHT FOR RCB
The last time these two teams met, a certain AB de Villiers came up with a masterclass as the Royal Challengers Bangalore aced the Kolkata Knight Riders. That was in Sharjah. On Wednesday night, on a greenish Abu Dhabi strip, Mohammed Siraj broke their back.
The son of an autorickshaw driver, the 26-year-old Hyderabadi wiped off the top order to floor the Knight Riders.
His three wickets for no run at the start meant that the Kolkata Knight Riders, the 2012 and 2014 champions, eventually spluttered to 84 for 8 in their 20 overs, the lowest IPL total without a team being all out.
Royal Challengers Bangalore lost their openers Aaron Finch and Devdutt Padikkal before skipper Virat Kohli and Gurkeerat Singh shepherded them home by eight wickets and with 39 deliveries to spare at the Zayed Cricket Stadium.
Siraj, who bowled the second over of the match, created more than dent that the Kolkata Knight Riders couldn’t recover from. Royal Challengers Bangalore’s seventh win saw them wrest second place from defending champions Mumbai Indians, while Kolkata Knight Riders’ fifth defeat blew open the race for play-off spots for the teams at the bottom.
“First I want to thank Allah for my performance. Then thanks to Virat for giving me the new ball. I have been practising a lot with the new ball,” Siraj said at the postmatch presentation.
It almost wouldn’t have been with Kohli initially planning to hand Washington Sundar the new ball. But he took a rain check.
“I was thinking of Washy (Sundar) for the new ball. It was a good toss to lose because we would have batted first. The plan was to bowl Washy and Morry (Chris Morris), but then we thought let’s go Morris and Siraj,” said Kohli.
“The management has set in a culture where there is proper planning. It is not random. We have a Plan A, we have a Plan B, we have a Plan C. We are here to execute the plans we have in place. We did a few things at the auction too, which is paying off. You can have all the plans, but you have to have belief,” he added.
With an open ground and a nice evening breeze aiding him, Siraj found purchase from the greentinged wicket to see opener Rahul Tripathi edge to wicketkeeper de Villiers. Left-hander Nitish Rana then saw his off-stump go for a walk before Tom Banton, who had come into the line-up in place of Andre Russell, averted the hat trick.
Siraj did get Banton in his next over, caught by De Villiers as he bowled back-to-back maidens. His analysis read 2-2-0-3 and Siraj eventually finished up by giving away just eight runs.
He became the first bowler in IPL history to bowl two maiden overs and the Kolkata Knight Riders took 13 deliveries to take a run off him. Those two catches off Tripathi and Banton saw De Villiers completing 100 catches in the IPL.
And while Siraj brought his ‘A’ game on the night, RCB veteran Yuzvendra Chahal too was miserly in giving away just 15 runs for his two scalps.
The only fight, if any, was from captain Eoin Morgan. The Englishman, playing his 300th T20, came up with a rearguard 30 from 34 balls that had three boundaries and a six. But that was as far as it went, as it was a sorry looking batting story for the Knight Riders.
Siraj’s two maiden overs added with a maiden each from allrounders Chris Morris and Sundar was a record too in an innings. The previous lowest total without a team getting bowled out was 92-8 the Kings XI Punjab had made against the Chennai Super Kings in Durban, when the IPL was shifted to South Africa in 2009.
This was the 16th lowest total in the IPL and the Kolkata Knight Riders’ second lowest. They had previously made 67 against the Mumbai Indians in 2008.
In fact, at one point, it seemed that the Royal Challengers Bangalore would get revenge after they were at the receiving end at the Eden Gardens in 2017, when Virat Kohli’s side had folded up for 49, the lowest in IPL history.
But the Kolkata Knight Riders just about managed to avoid the ignominy.