Venkatesh Iyer hasn’t fielded much in this IPL. He is the batting half of Kolkata Knight Riders’ impact sub plan–Suyash Sharma being the other half–that has worked out pretty well for them up till now. On Wednesday however, Jason Roy wasn’t being risked on the field because of an earlier niggle once he had done his job, hitting 56 in 29 balls.
Iyer got his wish, and asked to be stationed in the outfield. Since Bangalore is a venue where outfielders are more used to watching the ball sail over their heads, the probability of Iyer being engaged at the boundary was extremely low, least of all from Virat Kohli who probably has the best measure of the ground he has come to call his adopted home. But it was one of those days when Kohli misjudged a pull-off Andre Russell and Iyer didn’t, as he lunged to his left to complete a game-changing catch at deep midwicket.
The match wasn’t over till it was over though. RCB could bat deep and Dinesh Karthik was finally finding some form. Till Suyash Prabhudesai had a brain fade and hesitated to respond to a call for an easy second run from Karthik. Two overs later, Wanindu Hasaranga chased a wide ball from Andre Russell, only to find a fielder at deep point. The final blow came in the 18th over when Karthik, looking for big runs, pulled Varun Chakaravarthy straight to deep midwicket. From going at ten per over, RCB ended up by 21 runs.
Crazy it may seem, but 200 is just barely par at Bangalore. Kohli is the designated and proven chase master. Glen Maxwell had only struck 77 off 44 balls here last match. And with Faf du Plessis–who is striking at over 165–coming in as an impact sub, no total seems threatening enough. Eleven off debutant Vaibhav Arora in the first over, 19 in the next over from Umesh Yadav, the first 12 balls set the tone of a trailblazing chase. In came Sharma and the first ball to du Plessis was a tossed-up googly. Playing from the crease, du Plessis aimed for the stands at long-on but the connection wasn’t quite there and Rinku Singh caught him on the rope.
One wicket led to two and two led to three. Shahbaz Ahmed was sent in to get a left-right combination going but Sharma dismissed him leg-before, luring him into a sweep. A bigger blow came in the form of Maxwell when he backed away to carve Varun Chakaravarthy over mid-off but couldn’t connect it properly, ending up holing to David Wiese. KKR was making no bones about their strategy by then, letting their slow bowlers come to the fore.
“It’s important for us that the three spinners can bowl well,” Chandrakant Pandit told the broadcasters during a mid-innings interview. Sunil Narine had a rare off day but between Sharma and Chakaravarthy, KKR conceded 57 runs and took five wickets in eight overs.
But they won’t know what to make of their batting. Roy got them off to a flier, thumping five sixes even though Narayan Jagadeesan huffed and puffed to 27, wasting 29 balls in the process. When Vijaykumar Vyshak nailed a leg-stump yorker and a bouncer to get rid of the openers in the 10th over, triggering a rebuilding phase. This was the time their run rates dropped alarmingly, to the extent that there was a phase KKR had scored 27 runs in 30 balls and lost two wickets. Once again, KKR had lost the momentum in the middle overs, scoring just 65/2 between overs 7-15 after ending the Powerplay on 66/0.
RCB were nowhere clinical on the field, dropping Nitish Rana twice during this phase, allowing him to score a 21-ball 48 and resurrect KKR’s innings. But RCB’s fast bowlers kept them in the game as Harshal Patel and Mohammed Siraj bowled slowers and yorkers in tandem. Pick of the bowlers though was Wanindu Hasaranga as he removed Venkatesh Iyer and Rana to once again pull back the game for RCB.
A fantastic yorker from Siraj extended a horrendous tournament of Russell the batter but Rinku Singh belted him for 6, 4 and 4 before that to not let that over sting KKR. Two sixes in the last over from David Wiese helped KKR reach the psychological landmark of 200, capping a satisfactory turnaround where they had added 69 runs in the last five overs.
