Bengaluru was abuzz with excitement as their star-studded team arrived into the stadium. From being pushed into a corner, the Royal Challengers had qualified into the play-offs in style. On the other hand, Gujarat Lions reached the top of the table by performing consistently throughout the season.
In-form skipper Virat Kohli called correctly and opted to field first. The highly scrutinized bowling unit backed him up initially as the Lions were reduced to 9/3. However, Dwayne Smith batted with precision to help his team reach a fighting total on a deteriorating surface.
Dhawal Kulkarni silenced a vociferous crowd by razing through the power packed top-order. When it seemed like everything was over, AB de Villiers showed his class by counter-attacking the Gujarat bowlers. Ably assisted by the unheralded Iqbal Abdulla, the South African pulled off a miraculous victory to seal a place for RCB in the final.
Let us take a look at the most important statistics from the first qualifier.
0 – Number of times, captains who had won the toss chose to bat first at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in this IPL from 8 matches. As expected, Kohli decided to go with the trend.
1 – Instances where the Royal Challengers bowlers picked three wickets before their opposition had reached 10 runs. This was the first time across all IPL seasons.
1 – Bowlers with more wickets than Dhawal Kulkarni in the first six overs of an IPL match. Ishant Sharma had taken five against Kochi Tuskers Kerala in 2011.
1 – Matches won by Gujarat Lions from five attempts while batting first in this IPL. On the contrary, eight of their ten wins had come in chases.
2 – Four wicket-hauls for Shane Watson in his T20 career. The all-rounder’s last such performance had come in 2011 against England at the Adelaide Oval.
4 – Wickets for Kulkarni in this match. Conceding only 14 runs, this is the right-arm pacer’s career-best figures in T20s.
5 – Combined contribution from Aaron Finch and Brendon McCullum which was the lowest among all matches for the Gujarat openers in this IPL.
7 – Batsmen with 5000 plus runs in T20s who participated in this match. Overall, there are 20 batsmen who have crossed the landmark including Chris Gayle, McCullum, Kohli, Suresh Raina, Watson, Dwayne Smith and de Villiers.
14 – Wickets for Kulkarni in all Power Play overs of this IPL. It is the third most in the first six overs after Mitchell Johnson’s 16 and Mohit Sharma’s 15 in 2013.
19 – Catches taken by de Villiers in this IPL which is the most in a single T20 tournament. The next best is Kieron Pollard with 14 catches during the 2013 Caribbean Premier League.
23 – Runs added by the Lions from the first six overs. This was the second lowest Power Play score against RCB in IPL history.
41 – Runs separating the top two run-scorers across all seasons of the IPL. With over 4000 runs each, Raina tops the list and is closely followed by Kohli.
51 – Number of T20 innings after which Virat Kohli was dismissed without scoring. The 27-year old’s previous duck had come against Kings XI Punjab in the 2014 IPL.
79 – Runs for de Villiers which was his second highest score in this IPL during chases after an unbeaten 89 against SRH.
85 – Partnership between Smith and Dinesh Karthik which was the highest for a team which had lost three wickets before reaching ten runs in the IPL.
91 – Partnership between de Villiers and Abdulla which is the second highest for the seventh wicket in all IPL matches.
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