Batting first after winning the toss, RCB posted a competitive 171/5 on the board. Virat Kohli was out for 18 off 19, foxed by a slower ball from KM Asif. However, Faf du Plessis (55 off 44) and Glenn Maxwell (54 off 33) added 69 runs for the second wicket to lift Bangalore. The partnership was broken when Du Plessis fell to Asif, looking to break free. Adam Zampa then took out Mahipal Lomror (1) and Dinesh Karthik (2) in the 16th over of the innings.
RCB suffered another blow when Maxwell was cleaned up by Sandeep Sharma as he completely missed his reverse sweep. At 137/5 in the 18th over, RR seemed on top of the batting unit. However, a brilliant cameo from Anuj Rawat (29 not out off 11), who featured three fours and two sixes, lifted Bangalore past 170.
RR got off to a horror start in the chase as Yashasvi Jaiswal (0) struck the second ball from Mohammed Siraj to Kohli at mid-off. Things just kept getting worse for Rajasthan from there. Jos Buttler (0) slapped Wayne Parnell to cover-point, while Sanju Samson (4) top-edged a heave, which was brilliantly caught by a diving Rawat.
Devdutt Padikkal (4) was the next to go as he whipped Bracewell to mid-wicket, where Siraj took a sharp catch. Joe Root (10) was then trapped lbw by Wayne Parnell as he missed his flick. RR were six down for 31 at the end of the seventh over as Dhruv Jurel (1) sliced a pull off Bracewell.
Shimron Hetmyer struck Karn Sharma for three consecutive sixes in the eighth over, but Ravichandran Ashwin (0) was run out in the same over. Hetmyer himself perished to Maxwell for 35 off 19 after which Karn wrapped up proceedings by sending back Zampa (2) and Asif (0).
Speaking after the shocking loss, a stunned RR skipper Sanju Samson said, “I think our top three were scoring a lot of runs, we go hard in the powerplay but it didn’t come out today. I think it's too soon to analyze or dissect the game. You need to go hard in the powerplay knowing the ball was getting slower and older, that’s the way me, Jaiswal and Jos have played throughout.
“Credit to the RCB bowlers for their energy and intensity. I think this was a target that could have gone to the wire, I expected a tight match if we had a decent powerplay. I was just thinking seeing the batting collapse where we went wrong. I don't think I have an answer to that yet,” he added.
--By A Cricket Correspondent
