AB de Villiers seems to be making a habit of being spectacular in whatever he does on a cricket field, and the South African’s gravity-defying catch in Thursday’s Indian Premier League (IPL) match for Royal Challengers Bangalore only added to this theory.
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Rashid Khan (3-27), who clean bowled Kohli earlier, got rid of De Villiers and Moeen before Williamson’s countryman Colin de Grandhomme (40) blasted one four and four sixes in 17 balls.
Tournament: Hyderabad have already sealed a top-two playoff spot, while Bangalore are in the familiar position of having to win both of their remaining games to progress.
De Villiers was equally efficient with the bat for RCB against SRH as he and Moeen Ali put together a 107-run partnership for the third wicket.
But it was not to be as Williamson’s dismissal in the first delivery of the final over sealed Sunrisers fate and they eventually fell short by 14 runs.
Sandeep Lamichhane and Abhishek Sharma were the two new players and they made their T20 debut with Delhi Daredevils against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The Indian captain lauded de Villiers’ catch, saying it was “Spiderman stuff” but, at the same time, insisted he is getting used to such efforts from his RCB teammate. From all their matches in the eleven seasons so far, MI have taken a total of 1000 wickets – the only team to touch the four-figure mark, while RCB are a distant second with a tally of 918 wickets.
The late flourish came after AB de Villiers and Moeen Ali posted 69 and 65 respectively.
“Twenty runs. Kane (Williamson) was on strike, first ball when a wicket goes sometimes it is hard to come up from there”.
SRH, on the other hand, too much depended on opener Shikhar Dhawan (369 runs) and skipper Kane Williamson (544 runs) for the opening order.
Brought into the attack in the eighth over, Basil Thampi leaked runs as Ali smashed consecutive sixes off the pacer – first over mid-off and then over square-leg boundary – to give momentum to RCB’s innings. SRH were 152/2. Kane Williamson 76 (35) and Manish Pandey 21 (16) were at the crease.
Kings XI’s only hope of qualifying would be to win their last game by a huge margin, and hope Mumbai and RCB lose theirs. It’s another day, we’ve just got to come out and enjoy it, which we have done in the last two games.
In the 45th match which was executed between DD and RCB in 12th May, 2018 at Feroz Shah Kotla, the guest team Royal Challengers Bangalore won the toss and chose to bowl first.
Meanwhile, the Hyderabad captain slammed his half-century off 28 balls, helping his side inch closer to the target.
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Williamson attempted to pull off an incredible chase for the Sunrisers, scoring 81 runs off 42 balls in reply.
