After winning the toss and opting to bowl first, the Virat Kohli-led team dismissed the top four RR batters for a mere 43 runs inside eight overs. The match looked to be tilting towards the Bangalore-based franchise before Shivam Dube and Riyan Parag started building a sturdy partnership.
Dube was looking indomitable as he hit Yuzvendra Chahal for 17 runs in the very next over. Parag, too, was contributing in his way by hitting occasional boundaries and rotating the strike. The match had changed tides again and was equally poised before Parag gave an easy catch to Chahal off a Harshal Patel delivery in the fourteenth over.
The next batter Rahul Tewatia thrashed the bowlers as soon as he was in, but Dube, on the other hand, played some dot balls, which put pressure on him. In an attempt to go over the top of mid-wicket, Dube misjudged the length of a Kane Richardson off-cutter and stepped on his back foot to slog the ball.
The ball ended, hitting the toe of the bat, and it didn’t get the power required to clear the fence. Richardson started celebrating as soon as he saw Glenn Maxwell positioned at mid-wicket. Maxwell dived forward to take a sharp catch and dismissed Dube, who was dismayed with his shot. Thus, a heroic innings was cut short off a half-century by four runs.
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Following the southpaw’s dismissal, Sanju Samson & Co. smashed 44 runs off the next 27 balls and ended up with a respectable score of 177/9 in their allotted twenty overs. However, RCB openers Devdutt Padikkal and Virat Kohli had other plans as they crumbled RR and chased the total with 21 balls to spare without losing any wicket.
With this win, RCB is the only unbeaten side in the IPL 2021 so far and are positioned at the top of the points-table.
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