Watson, Jordan hold nerve as RCB deny Kings XI Punjab in nail-biter

In a contest that was decided off the last ball of the match, Royal Challengers Bangalore held their nerve to deny Kings XI Punjab by a solitary run on Monday night. KXIP, given to chase 176, needed 17 of the final over. After Farhaan Behardien picked up a single off the first ball of the final over, Marcus Stoinis put away Chris Jordan for a six and a four to bring the equation down to six runs from the final three balls. But Stoinis couldn’t score of the fourth ball and could only score two twos of the final two deliveries. RCB kept the hosts to 174-4 and took home two points from the match.

Hashim Amla and Murali Vijay added 45 at the top of KXIP’s chase, after which Wriddhiman Saha and Vijay added 43 runs. Despite a mid-innings stutter, when KXIP lost Saha and David Miller (dismissed for his first-ever duck in the IPL) to successive deliveries, the presence of a well-set Murali Vijay meant KXIP were always in the chase.

Vijay timed the ball beautifully; he played a variety of effortless strokes – drives, inside-out drives, pulls, hooks and flicks – and ran hard between the wickets. The KXIP captain brought up his half-century in the 12th over – needing 36 balls to get to the milestone. He accelerated thereafter, going after the spinners in particular; he hit Iqbal Abdullah for consecutive boundaries in the 14th over and hit Yuzvendra Chahal for two more boundaries in the 16th over. But in an attempt to put away a Shane Watson short delivery, the KXIP captain holed out to the fielder manning the square-leg boundary. Vijay was dismissed for 89 (57 balls, 12 fours, 1 six) and his dismissal gave the visitors the opening they needed.

KXIP needed 37 from the final three overs and 24 from the last two overs. Watson was brilliant in the 19th, conceding only seven runs. Jordan, who had gone for 47 runs in 3.3 overs, bowled three very good deliveries at the end to deny the hosts. Watson (4-0-22-2) – the only RCB bowler to go for under 7.50 runs per over – and Yuzvendra Chahal (1-30) were the pick of the six bowlers Virat Kohli used.

Earlier in the evening, after being given the chance to set a target, RCB were off to a quick start. Virat took strike first up and opened his account with a cut through backward point. Thereafter though, for the next few overs he settled down to play second fiddle, as KL Rahul got stuck into the KXIP bowlers. Rahul drove, cut, flicked and even played the dab to thirdman to pick up boundaries. By the end of the Powerplay phase, he had raced to 39 from 21 balls and RCB had cruised to 56 for no loss.

All the good work by the opening pair came undone shortly after as KC Cariappa, bowling his first over, dismissed both the well-set batsmen, and Axar Patel clean bowled Shane Watson. From 63 for no loss, RCB had slipped to 67-3. KXIP pushed in a few quiet overs as AB de Villiers and Sachin Baby took their time to come to grips with the slowness of the pitch and working out the angles. de Villiers didn’t score a boundary in the first 15 balls he faced – by which time he had scored 16.

But once de Villiers decided to open up, the KXIP bowlers were caught short of ideas. The first signs of aggression came in the 16th over when he scooped Sandeep Sharma over the fineleg boundary and then followed it up with a crunch through extra cover. In the following over, Mohit Sharma was at the receiving end; de Villiers waited for the slower delivery and flat batted one past the bowler. The very next ball, he swept another slower delivery to the square-leg boundary, in the process bringing up his half-century. It was a timely fifty from de Villiers – who had only managed scores of 4 and 1 in his last two matches.

de Villiers was dismissed by Sandeep in the 18th over, but not before he had punished the bowler for a boundary and a six earlier in the over; he made 64 from 35 balls – needing only 20 balls to score his last 48 runs. Sachin Baby made a useful contribution at the other end; the Kerala lad kept picking up the singles and ran the quick twos to hand the strike back to de Villiers. Sachin (33 from 29 balls), who batted at five, added 88 runs with de Villiers, before he was run out of the last ball of the innings. RCB had done well to recover from the mid-innings stutter to finish at a competitive 175-6.

For KXIP, the two spinners – Cariappa (2-16) and Axar Patel (1-27) were the most effective bowlers. Anureet Singh, who was included in the XI at the expense of Gurkeerat Singh, bowled his four overs tidily as well, conceding only 15 runs in his three overs. It was a forgettable day for the three players who had starred in KXIP’s win the other night – Sandeep (2-49), Mohit (3-0-33-0) and Marcus Stoinis (3-0-35-0).