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Match Review of Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Pune Warriors


Indian Premier League - Match review

Date : 29th April 2011 Match No. : 35
Teams : Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Pune Warriors
Venue : M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
Umpires : Aleem Dar and S.S. Hazare Third Umpire: Russell Tiffin
Toss : Pune Warriors won the toss and elected to field.

Playing XI Royal Challengers BangalorePlaying XI Pune Warriors
Daniel Vettori (c)Jesse Ryder
Chirs GayleYuvraj Singh (c)
Virat KohliManish Pandey
T. DilshanRobin Uthappa
AB de VilliarsTim Paine
Saurabh TiwaryMithun Manhas
Mohd. KaifHarpreet Singh
A. MithunRahul Sharma
Syed MohammadAlfonso Thomas
S. ArvindJerome Taylor
Zaheer KhanKamraan Khan


The Chinnaswamy stadium turned red in support of their team Royal Challengers Bangalore. The loudest considered crowd started chanting "RCB" mantra right at the time of toss itself with the red flags all over. It was really brave on Pune's skipper Yuvraj Singh's part to field first despite winning the toss on the pitch full of runs and always considered to be a batting pitch. How could he do this blunder?

RCB's two dangerous openers T. Dilshan and Jamaican hurricane named Chris Gayle opened the innings with blistering start. They started hitting the ball all over the park and boundaries. Dilshan was little watchful and was more happy to rotate strike. Chris Gayle has been in superb form in all the matches he has played so far. In Sidhu's language he has been the architect of the huge building blocks which appear on the RCB's batting graph. He made the home team reach a score of 50 in just 5.4 overs despite a very impressive spell by pacer Alfonso Thomas.

Pune Warriors, spinner Rahul Sharma did the trick and got T. Dilshan out on individual score of 15 in 19 balls. The Delhi boy Virat Kohli came to the crease to join the party with Gyale.. The impressive Kohli carried a different attitude and had a game plan in mind. As Gyale had already set the momentum, Kohli exploited it in the team's best interest. Pune bowlers started getting trashing from both sides and couldn't do much until Rahul Sharma helped them get their second breakthrough and that too of dangerous Chris Gayle at an individual score of 49 in just 26 balls with 4 boundaries and 4 huge sixes. At this stage RCB were 74 in 8.6 overs.

Virat Kohli along with AB de Villiars put up 66 runs stand probably the best looking partnership for the 4th wicket. Finally Alfonso Thomas got his first success when he got AB de Villiars out on 26. Saurabh Tiwary joined hands with Virat Kohli's in his special crafted evening. Kohli's wagon wheel of 63 in 42 balls with 4 boundaries and 4 sixes ended in the 19th over. Saurabh Tiwary along with Mohd. Kaif summed up the innings on the huge total of 181.

Gyale provided the start and Kohli acted as an anchor. Kohli, the only retained player by the franchisee, made them proud.

When it comes to chase a mammoth total, the first six overs with the filed restrictions on play a vital role. These overs need to be utilized to maximum.

Pune Warriors opened the batting with promising Jesse Ryder and Tim Paine. Jesse Ryder has been in good touch and started playing his natural cricket. The pace battery of RCB was at its best led by Zaheer Khan, A. Mithun and S. Arvind. Their confidence was high as they had a huge total to back them. Time Paine who was set out to do a job failed and turned out to be a real pain for the Pune warriors as he scored 8 runs and wasted 17 balls. These figures just do not relate to the 20-20 format at all.

Player no. 3, Manish Pandey looked struggling for his form and could not even rotate the strike for Ryder to take on. Ryder tried hard but misjudged the ball and got out on spin of Syed Mohammad after scoring 51 in 34 balls. Pune Warriors were 2 down for 79 runs in 11.4. The skipper Yuvraj Singh promoted himself up the order and decided to take charge. Manish Pandey could not impress at all and lost his wicket after scoring 19 of 23 balls. The team was 101/3 in 14 overs.

The pressure was building up as the required run rate was over 12. Yuvraj Singh's vital contribution of 41 in 23 balls with 2 boundaries and 3 sixes could not do much. Yuvraj Singh hit the 300th six of this IPL season. He tried to build a partnership with Robin Uthappa but got out at an individual score of 42 (23) and a team total of 131 in the 17th over.

Now 51 runs were required in just 18 balls, tough but achievable. It required some miraculous shots from Robin Uthappa, who has done it in the past. But as the luck did not favor the warriors, Uthappa got out after scoring 23 of 17 balls. With Uthappa getting out Warriors all hopes were gone. Mithun Manhas came out and got out in a hurry after scoring just 3. Pune Warriors managed to reach a total of 155 in 20 overs.

Excellent batting performance by Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle followed by marvelous bowling and fielding performance by the team mates laid the foundation of RCB victory and swung the fortune in RCB's favor. The team which was down and out started looking flamboyant.

Friday belonged to the Royals, earlier the Rajasthan Royals outplayed the Mumbai Indians and now The Royal Challengers Bangalore made their victory look so simple against the Pune Warriors.

Result: Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 26 runs.

The Awards: Man of the match: Virat Kohli for scoring match winning 67 in 42 balls.

Maximum Sixes: Chris Gayle for hitting 4 sixes.

Kingfisher Fair Play Award Chennai Super Kings tops the chart

Orange Cap (The leading run scorer) Virat Kohli- Royal Challengers Bangalore

Purple Cap (The leading wicket taker) Lasith Mallinga- Mumbai Indians

Question of the day: Is IPL destroying ODI cricket?



Last Updated on 5/2/2011





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