MATCH STORY
Follow UsHearing a million RCB stories will never be enough if you haven’t experienced it first-hand. Especially on those rare occasions when RCB canter home with their bat. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it can leave even the Super Bowl to shame.
RCB had a win-loss record of 40-40 at home. If you ever needed a reason to know why they have never won a title, that was it. They lose at home. And they lose big.
You can attribute 1000 reasons for that. Small boundaries. Lack of precision in the bowling line-up. Ultra-conservatism in the middle overs or not taking the game head-on at the start. Or, at times, you can lay it down to luck.
But on March 25 (Monday), Virat Kohli was having none of it. Never ever has Kohli been this aggressive. Never ever has he hit eight boundaries in the powerplay for RCB.
Four boundaries in the first over off Sam Curran before smashing Arshdeep Singh for another set of three boundaries in the fourth over. That too when the asking rate was below nine runs per over. This was Virat Kohli in his elements.
Even when Kohli had the ball in his arc and could have gently pushed them around, he was stepping out of his crease and playing so comfortably that would remind you of the peak 2016 version of him. Kagiso Rabada learned it the hard way, as did Harshal Patel, who operated on a leg-side-dominated field while bowling wide yorkers.
"I try to give the team a blazing start, but if wickets fall, you have to understand the conditions as well. Wasn't the usual placid pitch. It was a bit two-paced. And I thought I need to play correct cricketing shots," Kohli said after the match.
Shikhar Dhawan smartly navigated the game using Kagiso Rabada and Harpreet Brar. Instead of waiting around, he bowled them out in the middle overs, leaving maximum advantage to the death overs. With an impact batter around, bending them backwards in the middle overs was the smart thing to do, particularly knowing Harshal, Curran, and Arshdeep were death-overs specialists.
And then DK happened.
Not a lot of cricketers have the pure ingenuity attached to them as DK has. Not everyone looks dapper with a suit one day, holding a microphone and then chases the hell for leather in the most competitive cricket tournament in the world. Not every day you see someone passionately championing the cause of a domestic player in the commentary box one moment and then dispatching some of the most promising young players out of the ground with sheer disdain. That was DK - a pure force of nature.
The IPL 2022 was the second coming of DK, the T20 batter. He became a T20 hyperspecialist, going to the extent of hiring a stadium for himself in order to practice range-hitting. With the singular focus of returning to the T20 World Cup side, Dinesh Karthik went all-out while still maintaining a beautiful stance in the commentary box - providing insights and empathy at the same time.
The IPL 2023 didn’t go the same way. He faltered on the wayside, and the wrinkles of the past finally started to show up. Balls didn’t come onto the bat as they used to, and at a venue where the first innings total was netting around 200, Karthik was struggling to remember a thing. It would have been easy to pack the bag and call it a day. But DK decided to live another day. Or another year, in fact.
It’s two matches already, and DK has already stamped his authority. First, it was with Anuj Rawat in Chennai and then with Mahipal Lomror in Bengaluru. He imparted two invaluable lessons on how to go about death-over batting to two youngsters who will get many more opportunities like that in the future.
“Anuj batted well last time, but when Mahipal walked out.. he took the pressure off me. I didn't say anything, he [Lomror] was calm and when he hit that six, I just told him to keep a still head,” Karthik said in the end, trying to downplay his role.
This is the final year for DK. In two months, he will completely walk away from the sport as a cricketer and find solace in the comfy rooms of the commentary box. It's not yet the time for Kohli, as he will keep going for a few more years before hanging up his boots. But as the duo rocked the Chinnaswamy in the newly-designed Blue and Red jerseys, things seemed just like the past. It was pure bliss of cricketing goodness. Jubilant and powerful.
