MATCH STORY
Follow UsOne doesn’t need to dabble with statistics to know why RCB lose at home. There could be a multitude of factors, like their batters being unable to hit enough boundaries or not keeping pace with the modern-day T20 trends, but their bowlers’ inability to hold them at the same level as their competitors has to be the primary factor behind their dismal performances year after year.
Coming into the Gujarat Titans encounter on May 4 (Saturday), Royal Challengers Bengaluru had already played four home games while conceding 10.8 runs per over. That’s basically a boundary every 4.2 balls. Once you give away over 200 runs, your chances automatically go down and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they lost three games in the process.
Serenity sometimes tells you as much, but in a classic intervention from their much-awakened bowling unit, RCB let the Titans endure what many teams had done to them this season. You wouldn’t find many examples of a collective bowling performance almost having a spiritual impact on the RCB fans’ psyche as it did at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday. It was surreal.
It all started with Mohammed Siraj. The most experienced RCB pacer didn’t find a lot of goodwill from the fans when the Ajit Agarkar-led Indian selection committee picked him in the T20 World Cup squad ahead of the likes of T Natarajan or Sandeep Sharma, but the Hyderabadi Miyan hardly ever operates on public perception.
Already dealing with the subjugation from the Impact Player narrative, Siraj hit home in his first over to send Wriddhiman Saha back in the hut. He struck again in his second over and this time, it was time for Gill, who had a century to leave RCB in tatters last time he was at Chinnaswamy, to take the long walk back to the pavilion.
Karn Sharma may not have had the best of the game with the ball, but his dismissal of David Miller in the context of the game was crucial. The second Miller was out, it had a negative impact on the Titans and it became virtually impossible for the likes of Shahrukh Khan or Rahul Tewatia to go big the way they would’ve liked to.
And when RCB seemed to have total control over the game, leaving their fans cheering for them at the top of their lungs, they got Yash Dayal to add more fire to the rising heat. His was a combination of precision and planning - replay the Rashid Khan dismissal if you can. He nailed the yorker right against a shuffling Rashid to take his stumps for a walk before having Tewatia caught at the third man with a back-of-length delivery.
I don’t even need to explain how Vijaykumar Vyshak bowled the final over of the innings to set the tone for overall RCB dominance. It had already been set and Gujarat had been taken back into the game massively. That’s why despite the massive middle-order hiccups in the run-chase, an RCB win was never in doubt.
It was one night where RCB bowlers didn't do anything wrong. It was one of those nights where RCB decided to call the cards at Chinnaswamy. It was one of those nights where RCB would let their fans sleep peacefully - even though the qualification pathway seemed as bleak as ever.
For the set of diehard fans, this was a night that they were promised but hardly ever got. For them, this was what it was supposed to be, but they hardly ever had it. How could they not hold it tight?
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