New King in the jungle
Kings XI thrash RCB by 97 runs to register their first win of the season.
In the wild, a dominant male lion, the leader of the pride, is often challenged by rogue male lions for a pride takeover. Most days such takeover bids are unsuccessful, but yesterday was not like most days. The rogue male was bold, aggressive, decisive and he stomped his authority on the pride. The takeover was complete, the rogue lion prince is now the new king.
Winning the toss, Virat sent the Kings XI in to bat.
Opening the batting were Rahul and Mayank Agarwal. Any fears of Gayle being missed by KingsXI was quickly dissipated by Kannur Lokesh Rahul who played an innings for the ages.
An unbeaten 132 off just 69 balls, the first 50 came off 36 balls, and a winning 72 runs off the next 33, KL Rahul scored 132 in a total of 206. Tells you that this was a batting innings dominated by one man and one man only. Agarwal made a well composed 20 odd, Karun Nair was decent at the end too, scoring a few and staying unbeaten. Such was the ferocity of Rahul’s batting display that even experienced pros like Kohli, Steyn couldn’t hold their nerves, and made error upon error.
The ability to bowl fast is rare, to harness that talent and become one of the best at it is rarer still, but as Dale Steyn will tell you, the ability goes away with time, slowly at first then all at once. This will be Dale Steyn’s last IPL so lets just watch, enjoy and applaud the champion fast bowler that he’s been.
Umesh Yadav was poor one more time. The only way he can play is if he bowls 4 overs on the trot up top. Saini bowled ok. Shivam Dube, although he picked up a couple of wickets, is yet to convince me. The one bowler that did well, again, is Chahal. This man just keeps performing day in and day out. Just imagine if Chahal was at CSK how many trophies he would have won by now, and how many more he could have won CSK on those turners at Chepauk.
Set a daunting total of 207 runs, RCB got off to a disastrous start as Padikkal, Joshua, and Virat all went inside the first three overs. Shami and Cottrell are forming a potent fast bowling partnership at the top for KingsXI. Padikkal after that high of the last match, got out cheaply today. Joshua was promoted up but couldn’t really do much of the opportunity. Going forward Moeen needs to play in his place, and ABD keep wickets.
Kohli disappointed too, first on the field, then when he came out to bat, perished trying to pull one short ball outside off to the leg side, a basic error. It was also an innings were he didn’t think about getting in first, his strength otherwise, and just tried to force the pace; never works!
There is little else to talk about in terms of RCB’s batting as most didn’t even look like they could score more than run a ball, looking at you Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube, well short of impressive really.
The same cannot be said of Murugan Ashwin and Ravi Bisnoi though. Both these wrist spinners bowled with a plan, executed them, taking 6 wickets between the two. The pacers did the job at the top, and spinners in the middle as it should be, kudos to KingsXI for assembling such a high skill bowling unit.
A quick word for Anil Kumble too, as the spinners start doing well, as the team starts winning, this man needs to get credit as well. The way he was sacked by the BCCI was unceremonious and largely undeserved.
RCB looks like a derailed team, far off the right track, Morris whenever fit needs to come in, Pawan Negi needs to play too, and so does Moeen Ali. Their next game against MI will be tough so they better get their act together, fast. KingsXI have a settled team and will be buoyant ahead of their next match against Rajasthan Royals, more good cricket is yet to come.
Onto the next one!
