What does a team do when their highest wicket-taker in the season is ruled out on the eve of an important match due to injury?
Simple, they fire up their other bowlers to put in a performance as comprehensive as any you’ll ever see in IPL history.
No Chahal, no problem
When news filtered in that Yuzuvendra Chahal, Royal Challenger Bangalore’s promising leg-spinner who’s taken 10 wickets so far, had been ruled out due to injury, Delhi Daredevils might have had a reason to cheer. RCB’s weak spot was supposed to be their bowling, after all.
Not a chance. Delhi were blown away by the combined might of RCB’s pace arsenal. Eight out of the nine Delhi wickets fell to the pacers, but it wasn’t raw pace alone that had Delhi hopping; Bangalore’s attack just bowled intelligently and induced false strokes.
The Starc-Aaron combo
Varun Aaron had a forgettable start to IPL 2015 – in the first three games he played, he conceded 124 runs and picked up just a solitary wicket. The criticism was not unjustified – after all, one of India’s big pace sensations was not supposed to be taken for so many and that too, so comfortably.
Allan Donald, the RCB bowling coach and a former South Africa legend, made a telling observation in an interview he gave: he pointed out that the presence of Starc (who had been out due to injury in those games) would "bring out the best in Aaron".
Looks like Donald was bang on target. Since Aaron had been drafted into the squad for this match to replace Chahal, there was a lot of pressure. Rarely do we see an Indian fast bowler willing to test batsmen with short-pitched stuff but Aaron was a delight to watch if you’re a pace-bowling connoisseur – aggressive and ferocious, he first had Yuvraj wafting at one outside off stump before squaring up Angelo Matthews up with a snorter which was gleefully snapped up by ABD at short-midwicket.
Mitchell Starc has a bit of Wasim Akram in him, perhaps less skiddy, but just as good. Angling it into the batsman, swinging it away, inswinging yorkers, the short stuff – he can do it all and with just as much control as the Pakistani great. More ominously for the other teams, Starc is looking like he’s close to the kind of form he enjoyed during the World Cup.
Starc’s performance on Sunday was a carbon copy of what had worked so well for him at the World Cup. Shreyas Iyer may very well be the next Sehwag, but even Sehwag wouldn’t have had an answer to the unplayable yorker that clattered into the stumps. After a vicious first spell, Starc came back to mop up the tail, making mincemeat of Amit Mishra and Nadeem’s frail efforts to keep out his yorkers.
Is David Wiese an inspired buy?
Not much was known of David Wiese before the IPL, but as the season goes by, it seems RCB have struck gold with him.
RCB experimented with Sean Abbott and Darren Sammy in their first two matches, but it seems they’ve finally found their man in David Wiese. He’s only played four matches so far and has already picked up seven wickets. His batting really hasn’t been tested properly, but he showed great promise in his 47 against Mumbai in a losing cause.
It is his bowling though that is causing the biggest headaches for the opposition. His ability to loop the ball taking the pace off it completely leads to batsmen mistiming their shots. Duminy fell to one of these deliveries, trying to slash one through the off-side, only managing to bottom edge it back to the keeper. Wiese then bowled three dot balls to Yuvraj, frustrating him even further. He would later come back to trap Coulter-Nile lbw with a delivery which swung back in, rapping him plumb on the pads.
A clinical victory
The clinical nature of the win would have delighted Kohli. Delhi’s bowlers were sent on a leather-hunt by Gayle as he brought up yet another half-century in the IPL. A target of 95 was never going to be enough, especially given RCB’s top three batsmen.
What will delight Kohli more is that this victory will give a substantial boost to their net run rate, something which might come in very handy, considering how tight the table is currently. RCB seem to have stepped up a gear in their last two games – let’s hope they can maintain this kind of momentum.
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Simple, they fire up their other bowlers to put in a performance as comprehensive as any you’ll ever see in IPL history.
No Chahal, no problem
When news filtered in that Yuzuvendra Chahal, Royal Challenger Bangalore’s promising leg-spinner who’s taken 10 wickets so far, had been ruled out due to injury, Delhi Daredevils might have had a reason to cheer. RCB’s weak spot was supposed to be their bowling, after all.
Not a chance. Delhi were blown away by the combined might of RCB’s pace arsenal. Eight out of the nine Delhi wickets fell to the pacers, but it wasn’t raw pace alone that had Delhi hopping; Bangalore’s attack just bowled intelligently and induced false strokes.
The Starc-Aaron combo
Varun Aaron had a forgettable start to IPL 2015 – in the first three games he played, he conceded 124 runs and picked up just a solitary wicket. The criticism was not unjustified – after all, one of India’s big pace sensations was not supposed to be taken for so many and that too, so comfortably.
Allan Donald, the RCB bowling coach and a former South Africa legend, made a telling observation in an interview he gave: he pointed out that the presence of Starc (who had been out due to injury in those games) would "bring out the best in Aaron".
Looks like Donald was bang on target. Since Aaron had been drafted into the squad for this match to replace Chahal, there was a lot of pressure. Rarely do we see an Indian fast bowler willing to test batsmen with short-pitched stuff but Aaron was a delight to watch if you’re a pace-bowling connoisseur – aggressive and ferocious, he first had Yuvraj wafting at one outside off stump before squaring up Angelo Matthews up with a snorter which was gleefully snapped up by ABD at short-midwicket.
Mitchell Starc has a bit of Wasim Akram in him, perhaps less skiddy, but just as good. Angling it into the batsman, swinging it away, inswinging yorkers, the short stuff – he can do it all and with just as much control as the Pakistani great. More ominously for the other teams, Starc is looking like he’s close to the kind of form he enjoyed during the World Cup.
Starc’s performance on Sunday was a carbon copy of what had worked so well for him at the World Cup. Shreyas Iyer may very well be the next Sehwag, but even Sehwag wouldn’t have had an answer to the unplayable yorker that clattered into the stumps. After a vicious first spell, Starc came back to mop up the tail, making mincemeat of Amit Mishra and Nadeem’s frail efforts to keep out his yorkers.
Is David Wiese an inspired buy?
Not much was known of David Wiese before the IPL, but as the season goes by, it seems RCB have struck gold with him.
RCB experimented with Sean Abbott and Darren Sammy in their first two matches, but it seems they’ve finally found their man in David Wiese. He’s only played four matches so far and has already picked up seven wickets. His batting really hasn’t been tested properly, but he showed great promise in his 47 against Mumbai in a losing cause.
It is his bowling though that is causing the biggest headaches for the opposition. His ability to loop the ball taking the pace off it completely leads to batsmen mistiming their shots. Duminy fell to one of these deliveries, trying to slash one through the off-side, only managing to bottom edge it back to the keeper. Wiese then bowled three dot balls to Yuvraj, frustrating him even further. He would later come back to trap Coulter-Nile lbw with a delivery which swung back in, rapping him plumb on the pads.
A clinical victory
The clinical nature of the win would have delighted Kohli. Delhi’s bowlers were sent on a leather-hunt by Gayle as he brought up yet another half-century in the IPL. A target of 95 was never going to be enough, especially given RCB’s top three batsmen.
What will delight Kohli more is that this victory will give a substantial boost to their net run rate, something which might come in very handy, considering how tight the table is currently. RCB seem to have stepped up a gear in their last two games – let’s hope they can maintain this kind of momentum.