Over the years, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru have always tried to deliver an important message, a message of conserving Mother Nature with their iconic green jersey. Every season they have played one of their games in green and for the last two years, they have been soaring in their flamboyant greens.

After besting SRH in their green game in 2022, 2023 saw them take on the mighty Rajasthan Royals where they were able to sneak out a thrilling win in a high-scoring gala at Chinnaswamy.

Winning the toss, RR opted to bowl and RCB had a couple of early hiccups as they lost Virat Kohli and Shahbaz Ahamad early. But then the Royal Challengers were able to stage a strong turnaround of affairs, riding high on the shoulders of Faf du Plessis (62) and Glenn Maxwell (77).

The duo added 127 runs for the third wicket from just 67 balls but once the two were back in the hut, RCB collapsed like a house of cards barely crawling their way to 189. Even though RR had a terrific batting line-up, RCB believed.

Amping up the faith, Mohammed Siraj dealt an absolute thunderbolt to the hearts of the Royals as he stormed one through the gates of Jos Buttler. The fall of Buttler, however, did very little to dampen the soaring spirits of RR as they were able to get together the pieces in places and started driving hard for the finish line, courtesy of a resilient partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal (47) and Devdutt Padikkal (52).

David Willey broke the partnership with the crucial scalp of Padikkal while Harshal Patel struck in quick succession to remove Jaiswal. Following the departure of the two, Sanju Samson (22) and Dhruv Jurel (34*) did put in a staunch show of resilience but the Royal Challengers were in no mood to sit back as they kept on chipping away at the wickets regularly.

The constant fall of wickets slowed down the scoring rate and despite Jurel’s late charge, it eventually came up short as RCB secured a 7-run win in the nail-biting encounter. Maxi was awarded the Player of the Match award for his outstanding innings up front.