Royal Challengers Bangalore set a target of 140 runs as Chennai Super Kings, led by a fiery spell by Ashish Nehra, produced a fine bowling performance in Qualifier 2 of the Pepsi IPL-8 at the JSCA International Stadium here on Friday.
After CSK captain M.S. Dhoni opted to field, Nehra moved the ball in the air as well as off the seam, leaving some of the best batsmen in the world guessing.
Nehra’s best effort came in CSK’s fifth and his third over when he saw off RCB captain Virat Kohli, whose uppish flick off the hip ended in the clasp of Mohit Sharma at short fine-leg. Dhoni, who seemed to have finely judged his India teammate’s penchant for the flick, had set his field accordingly.
Kohli, the current India Test captain, was picking the ball well and had punished Nehra with a boundary and a six in his previous over. But the veteran CSK bowler set the trap with a quicker delivery as Kohli went ahead with the flick just to see it going down Sharma’s throat.
Before RCB could recover from the loss of its captain, Nehra inflicted the second blow trapping the dreaded A.B. de Villiers plumb in front of the wicket. The South Africa skipper found himself cramped for space while negotiating a sharp in-swinger.
Nehra may have been a bit unlucky not to have got Gayle to a confident ‘lbw’ appeal. Nehra ended the opening spell with commendable figures of 3-0-18-2.
With R. Ashwin giving able support from the other end, RCB crawled to 29 for two at the end of six overs, one of its poorest PowerPlay totals in the tournament.
Ashwin scalped one of the emerging hopes in the RCB batting line-up, Mandeep Singh, who went for an uppish sweep and ended in the hands of Michael Hussey at deep square-leg.
Continuing to remain miserly with his bowling, Ashwin ended his spell with figures of 4-0-13-1.
RCB reached a paltry 46 for three after 10 overs and its hopes of posting a big total appeared to be vanishing quickly.
After Suresh Raina ended the run of West Indian big-hitter Chris Gayle at 41 (43b, 2x4, 3x6) in the 14th over, RCB was tottering at 80 for four, when Dinesh Karthik and Sarfaraz Khan added some crucial runs to lend respectability to the total.
