IPL: KL Rahul hands RCB another loss in Bengaluru

By Ashish Pant, April 11 (ESPN CRICINFO): It started so well for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Then, for 15-odd overs, it didn't. Then it suddenly started going to plan again. The RCB loyalists, who had packed the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to the rafters, found their voice. Only to have local lad KL Rahul silence them.

Delhi Capitals 169 for 4 (Rahul 93*, Stubbs 38*, Bhuvneshwar 2-26) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 163 for 7 (Salt 37, David 37*, Kuldeep 2-17, Nigam 2-18) by six wickets

In a game with a fair share of twists and turns, Delhi Capitals (DC) continued their unbeaten run, notching up a fourth straight win of the season, handing RCB a second home defeat, this one by six wickets.

Sent into bat, it was a strange RCB innings. They scored 53 runs in the first three overs for zero wickets and 36 in the last two for zero wickets. In the 15 overs in between, they could only score 74 runs while losing seven wickets.

Having restricted RCB to 163 for 7, DC would have been the happier side going into the break. But their joy was short-lived as RCB picked up three wickets inside the powerplay and had DC struggling at 67 for 4 after 11 overs.

The required rate, which began at a shade over eight was almost touching 11 at this stage. But Rahul flicked a switch and alongside Tristan Stubbs began DC's victory march. The two scorched 102 runs in the next 6.5 overs, adding 111 for the fifth wicket, as DC romped home with 13 balls to spare. Rahul finished with an unbeaten 93 off just 53 balls and celebrated in fitting fashion in front of his home crowd.

Rahul's happy homecoming

He was on 29 off 29 balls after 11 overs, struggling with his timing, looking sluggish on a sticky Chinnaswamy surface. He even had a life on 7 when Rajat Patidar dropped a tough catch running back from mid-off. Rahul made sure to cash in. After 11 overs, ESPNcricinfo's win probability for DC had dipped to 14.31% from 67.45% at the start of their innings.

Then, Rahul gave the RCB bowlers a hiding.

It started with Stubbs, who played a cheeky reverse-sweep off Krunal Pandya, which beat short third. Rahul then dumped Krunal over deep backward square-leg and that was the beginning of the end for RCB. He went 4 and 6 against Liam Livingstone before taking down Josh Hazlewood in a fierce display of ball-striking.

With DC requiring 65 off 36, Rahul first smashed Hazlewood for back-to-back fours before thumping him for a 4 and 6 to end the over, which went for 22. That brought down the equation to 43 off 30. Stubbs deposited Suyash Sharma for a four and six and before Rahul finished off the game smashing Yash Dayal for two sixes and a four in the 18th over. He smashed a six over the fine-leg boundary to seal the win and then slammed his bat on to the turf, almost marking his territory. Striking at 100 in his first 29 balls, he thrashed 64 off his next 24, at a strike rate of 266.67. This truly is Rahul's ground, isn't it?

DC's horror start

Before Rahul's onslaught, DC's chase was going nowhere. They lost Faf du Plessis and Jake Fraser-McGurk at the start of the third over. Du Plessis first miscued Dayal to Patidar at mid-off before Fraser-McGurk's lukewarm season continued as he top-edged Bhuvneshwar Kumar straight up with Jitesh Sharma taking a catch after a bobble. Abishek Porel became Bhuvneshwar's second victim as DC slipped to 39 for 3 inside the powerplay, which soon became 58 for 4 in the ninth over. As it turned out, that was the last speck of joy for RCB.

RCB's powerplay of two halves

First three overs: 53 for 0; five fours, three sixes, zero wickets

Next three overs: 11 for 2; zero fours, one six, two wickets

When RCB were sent into bat, it seemed like Phil Salt had just one agenda on his mind: to tonk every ball out of the park. And he succeeded for a while as the Chinnaswamy crowd went berserk. He wreaked havoc in the first three overs, with his takedown of Mitchell Starc being one of the highlights of the evening. Salt smashed him for three fours and two sixes in the third over of the innings, which went for 30. The ball flew everywhere - over point, over mid-on, over the wicketkeeper's head, and RCB crossed the 50-run mark quickly. This was RCB's second-quickest team fifty of all time in the IPL.

Then it went downhill for a while.

Salt smashed an Axar Patel length ball to extra cover and charged off. Virat Kohli responded initially, only to backtrack, and Salt was run out by a distance.

Vipraj Nigam then conceded just two runs in his first over with Devdutt Padikkal clearly struggling. He was put out of his misery by Mukesh Kumar, whose slower offcutter did the trick as Padikkal fell for 1 off 8. Mukesh's first over, the sixth of the innings turned out to be a maiden wicket with RCB getting to 64 in the powerplay.

Wristspinners' day out

The surface is known as a spinners' graveyard. Only Kuldeep Yadav and Nigam had not received the memo. The spin twins put on a strangle and the RCB batters had no answers. After Nigam's two-run over in the powerplay, Kohli broke the shackles and went for six over long-on but Nigam kept his composure. He gave the ball enough air and Kohli, looking to go inside-out, only managed to slice it as far as Starc, who took a good catch running from long-off.

Mohit Sharma then got rid of Livingstone before Kuldeep sent back Jitesh, who was done in by a wrong'un. He then sent Patidar packing too while Nigam had Krunal as RCB lost the plot completely to slip to 125 for 7 in 17.1 overs. The two finished with combined figures of 8-0-35-4, bowling a total of 23 dot balls in their spell.

That RCB reached 163 was down to Tim David's late bash where he hit four sixes and two fours in the last two overs to finish unbeaten on 37 of 20 balls. It seemed they were a touch short, and Rahul made sure RCB were kept winless at home in IPL 2025.