And that is it. No longer do we write articles in a similar vein, not until next year at least.
With the tournament concluding last night with the Sunrisers Hyderabad being crowned champions, one can’t help but wonder whether the Royal Challengers Bangalore are the equivalent of South Africa in international cricket.
This is the second time that Bangalore couldn’t grab the chance in a final as they bottled it in the final of the IPL 2016.
Credit, however, must be given to the Sunrisers for their efficient display in the last part of the innings. At one point, a Gayle-inspired RCB were cruising towards an easy win, but they managed to grab quick wickets and halt them.
There were plenty of memorable moments from the final match of the 9th edition of the IPL that don't fade away, quite like the AxeSignature range of body perfumes. Let's take a look:
1) David Warner’s final surge
In any other IPL, he would have ended up being the winner of the Orange Cup. His only curse was that Virat Kohli was in superhuman form. Not that he minds, though, as he would gladly take the IPL trophy over any individual accolades.
While Virat Kohli scored 4 centuries in the tournament and got his face plastered all over the cover of the competition, David Warner managed to score five 90+ scores in this IPL—a remarkable feat in itself.
In the final, he was once again at his best as he scored a brilliant 69 of just 38 balls to give his team a great start to their attack and put up a good score. And it happened exactly as he planned, thanks to…
2) Ben Cutting’s all round brilliance
The master strikes at dawn. Ben Cutting came into the IPL after an unimpressive outing in the Big Bash League. But he had David Warner’s trust and faith—and he made sure he repaid it in the most important game of it all.
As SRH were constantly losing wickets and were risking a late implosion, Ben Cutting came in and smashed his way to superb 39 from only 15 balls.
When he came to bat, the score was 147 with just four overs to go, but his late surge allowed them to reach 208 in the final 24 balls. The highlight of it was the longest six of the tournament - 117m.However, he wasn’t finished just yet.
With the ball, he took 2 wickets in his 4 over spell while giving away only 35 runs, which is an excellent return on Chinnaswamy’s belter of a pitch.
3) Chris Gayle’s big game knock
The one thing about Chris Gayle is that he rarely performs in finals. He has played a great many innings that won games for his team with the utmost ease, but a very, very few of them came in the final.
However, last night’s final turned out to be an exception.
As he and Kohli set out to chase a mammoth 209, he showed no mercy on the bowlers. He whacked them all over the park. Such was the brutality of his batting that RCB reached the three-figure mark within 9 overs itself.
In the end, he was undone by Ben Cutting, but not before he scored a beautiful 76 of 38 balls.
4) Virat Kohli’s 50
Winning the IPL would have meant a lot for him. His sheer passion was blatantly apparent in the qualifier against Gujarat Lions. In that game, however, he got out for a duck—which made it all the more predictable that he would come good in the final.
The score to chase was a gargantuan 209. With the Gayle-storm ongoing, the Test captain of India preferred to stay quiet and build his innings slowly instead.
Before the game began, he had 919 runs under his name in the tournament. Many were expecting him to reach the thousand mark, but it wasn’t to be.
But he went very close as he churned his way to a 35-ball 54 before Barinder Sran cleaned him up. This turned out to be a turning point as de Villiers and Shane Watson followed suit soon after.
5) Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s art of death bowling
One of the best thing about his IPL is that in the end, it was the team with the best bowling unit of the tournament nicked the trophy. The message young children get from watching cricket these days is a terrorising one as very few of them would actually prefer being a bowler after watching AD de Villiers and Virat Kohli bat.
However, good batting wins you games, great bowling units win you tournaments.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was spectacular in the tournament, emerging as the purple cap holder with 23 wickets. Bowling the way he did on these pitches was a work of art itself. Last night, as the Royal Challengers needed only 51 from the last 5, he came in and bowled 2 overs in the final 3.
And he gave away only 16 runs in those 2 overs. He may not have had grabbed wickets, but it was his economic spell that stood out from the rest.
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