It was a last ball thriller to begin VIVO IPL 14 as RCB held their nerves to seal a win over Mumbai Indians.
AB de Villiers smashed 48 (28) balls , guided Royal Challengers Bangalore home by 2 wickets over defending champions Mumbai Indians. After Mumbai were derailed by Harshal Patel as he picked up his maiden 5 wicket haul. Put into bat, Mumbai Indians got off to a decent start as Captain Rohit Sharma and Chris Lynn opened the batting for MI. Rohit was looking good until he was sent back after a mix up with Lynn. But Lynn didn’t allow this to cause a problem as he carried the innings forward with Suryakumar Yadav.
Lynn departed one short from his half century as he made a good 49(35) . Suryakumar played some classical shots for his 31(23) . At one stage MI were looking at something around 190 but lost their way in the middle due to some excellent bowling from RCB. Mumbai Indians lost 4 wickets in the lost over and managed just 1 run in the penultimate over. It was a result of some skilful death bowling from Harshal Patel. As he finished with magical figures of 5/27 which prevented MI from another 10-15 runs.
In reply, RCB got a solid start and were 98/2 at one stage , steadily cruising towards victory with Virat and Maxwell guiding them efficiently. Both of these players looked in complete control of the run chase and were in good form. But the wicket of Virat (33) In the 12th over. Also Maxwell 39 in the 14th over changed the coarse of the match as Mumbai made a comeback into the match. But it was RCB’s rescue man AB de Villiers who single handily took the team home with 2 wickets remaining. AB de Villiers made a 28 ball 48 which was the difference between the two teams at the end.
It seemed de Villiers never left international cricket with the way he was handling Boult and Bumrah . It was a nail biting finish to the season opener as Royal Challengers Bangalore won on the last ball. With Mumbai Indians giving a valiant effort to pull things their way but lacked a big of intensity. RCB will be looking to carry on with this momentum and go all the way to their maiden trophy. Whereas MI who are known as slow starters , will be keen on getting back on track with some more intensity.
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