IPL 2019, RCB vs KXIP: Captaincy move that won yet another thriller for RCB

The 42nd match of the season was held between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab at the Chinnaswamy stadium. It was a must win game for both the teams to stay in contention for the play-offs. RCB came to the match high on confidence after winning a close encounter against the then table toppers Chennai Super Kings. On the other hand, KXIP came with a poor away record, having lost their last four away games this season.

The Punjab captain Ashwin won the toss and elected to bowl first. RCB lost the wicket of Virat Kohli early in the innings. But on the other end, Parthiv Patel showed his aggressive version as he smashed 43 runs in 24 balls, and got out to Murugan Ashwin. The home team lost the in-form Moeen Ali too early as he got bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin. At one stage, RCB were struggling at 81/4.

AB de Villiers and Stoinis played a waiting game and took them to a respectable total by the 17th over. Then, both of the unleashed with their sheer power. ABD hit three consective sixes off of Shami, with one going on to the roof. The pair demolished the Punjab bowlers by scoring 64 runs in last 18 balls. ABD scored an unbeaten 44-ball 82 runs, including seven massive sixes and the Australian all-rounder scored 46 runs in 34 balls, which helped the home team to go past 200 runs.

Chasing the massive 203 runs to win, Gayle and Rahul off to the flying start as usual. Gayle got out for 23 runs owing to the smart captaincy by Kohli, who kept long-on for Gayle inside the power-play. Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul had a decent partership for the second wicket. Both of them got out in quick succession.

But then came the surprise for RCB as the left-hand wicket keeper batsman from West Indies, Nicholas Pooran, showed what is he capable of and smashed three sixes off of Sundar, which put the home team bowlers under pressure, as the West Indian connected with most of the balls which went for sixes.

This is when Virat Kohli made some brave changes which paid off well. Pooran was going bersek against spinners. While Kohli might have been tempted to go with RCB's most experienced spin bowler Chahal, he instead had other ideas in mind and gave the ball to his fast bowlers.

Umesh Yadav, who was expensive in the last game bowled the 18th over and almost took the wicket of Pooran, but Stonis dropped the skier. The 19th over was given to young Saini, who removed both Miller and Pooran, which made the equation difficult for the visiting team. RCB won the game by 17 runs

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