Faf du Plessis and Josh Hazlewood spearhead the charge as RCB makes it five in seven

It needed some persuasion for sure but it eventually did come in the end as Royal Challengers Bangalore kept an explosive Lucknow batting order in check to seal their fifth win of the season.

Rahul won the toss and elected to field first, sensing the presence of green on the pitch that was undoubtedly going to be conducive for the bowlers. Rahul’s faith in his bowling department reaped handsome dividends as RCB lost Anuj Rawat and Virat Kohli early.

With the scoreline teetering at 7 for the loss of 2 at the end of the opening over, Glenn Maxwell took the fight to the Super Giants with his own brand of belligerence that saw the tables turning. He played the role of the enforcer at one end while Faf anchored well at the other, stitching together a quickfire partnership of 37 runs before the Australian all-rounder miscued his switch-hit into the arms of a flying Jason Holder.

Much to the woes of RCB, they lost Suyash Prabhudessai in quick succession, making life difficult for themselves as the scorecard showed signs of a collapse on the horizon. However, this would probably be the umpteenth time where Faf and his men turned around a sloppy start and clawed their way back in with a rock-solid batting display.

Shahbaz Ahmed once again played a knock that had mastery-over-nerves written all over it wherein it was Faf who took over the herculean onus of belting the Giants. The duo forged a game-changing partnership of 70 runs where Shahbaz played a composed knock of 26 from just 22 balls and Faf got into his hitting stride.

With Dinesh Karthik in next, the Challengers were in no mood to hold back and smashed the bowlers at a decent rate, eyeing a 190 on the cards. Sadly, for RCB a fine last over from Jason Holder confined them to 181 and also left Faf short of his maiden IPL century by just 4 runs.

Given the decent stature of the surface, the chase was very much within the reach of the Super Giants and they were off to a flying start as KL Rahul started bringing out the boundaries. It was Australian expressman, Josh Hazlewood who whipped in a belter that angled away from de Kock and Dinesh Karthik pulled out cheekily after a dive as Glenn Maxwell completed the take comfortably to remove a menacing QDK.

Manish Pandey wanted to be overtly ambitious against the Australian quick and ended up paying a hefty price as he holed out straight to Harshal Patel. The following partnership between Krunal and KL Rahul started threatening to take the game away from RCB. Rahul seemed in fine touch while Pandya put up a handful of surprisingly good-looking strokes.

The duo put together a stellar stand of 30 runs when a drifting delivery from Harshal whizzed past KL Rahul down the leg-side. Here is the fun part. It seemed wide to the naked eye, while the umpire felt that it kissed something along the way.

Faf and Harshal seemed to be in confusion but they went for the review nonetheless. To the frenzied bouts of cheers and happiness, ultra-edge showed that the ball did tickle Rahul’s bat en route to the gloves of Dinesh Karthik.

Deepak Hooda and Krunal Pandya did try and take the chase as close as they could but it was Mohammed Siraj who would claim the prized scalp of Deepak Hooda as Suyash Prabhudessai bagged a stunner, running in from the boundary and completing a flipper to ensure that the catch was safe and sound.

Despite the presence of threatening names in the shed, somehow the RCB bowlers managed to find the perfect line and length where the LSG batters couldn’t just shake off the manacles. Glenn Maxwell snuffed out the resistance of Krunal Pandya with a slower delivery that saw the Challengers inching closer to the win.

With Marcus Stoinis still in the middle, it was going to be a full-blown gutter war given the terrific striking power that the Australian all-rounder brags about. He did get off to good start but lost his plot completely as he played down Hazlewood’s darting cherry onto his own stumps, sealing the fate of the tie.

With 31 to win from the final over, Harshal Patel bagged the big fish of Jason Holder, stamping the RCB dominance in the boldest of liveries. 

With the fifth win of the season from 7 matches, the Challengers climbed up to the second position of the points table. They will be up against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in their following encounter on Saturday.