Captain Faf du Plessis (73 off 43 balls) and former skipper Virat Kohli (82 not out off 49 balls) lapped up the cheers of a packed house at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, guiding Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to an emphatic eight-wicket win over Mumbai Indians in their IPL 2023 opener on Sunday.
While Du Plessis was at his aggressive best, Kohli remained solid and steady right from the onset as the duo’s opening stand of 148 helped RCB overhaul Mumbai Indians’ 171/7 with 22 balls to spare. The duo batted with such authority that none of the Mumbai bowlers, including comeback man Jofra Archer and Impact Player Jason Behrendorff (coming in place of Suryakumar Yadav), looked effective.
RCB, on their part, didn’t even require the Impact Player, courtesy Du Plessis and Kohli, who was dropped on 7 and 68.
Nonetheless, it was Kohli who brought up the winning runs with a six which was also his fifth, off pacer Arshad Khan. RCB, however, were a tad unfortunate as well as they couldn’t avail of the full services of left-arm quick Reece Topley.
After bowling two overs and taking the key wicket of Cameron Green, the England pacer hurt his right shoulder after a diving effort at short fine leg. Had Topley bowled his full quota of overs, the job could well have been tougher for Tilak Varma, who top-scored for Mumbai with his unbeaten 84 off 46 balls.
That the left-handed batsmen scored almost half of his team’s total goes on to reflect the significance of his innings. When he arrived at the middle, Mumbai, put into bat, had slumped to 20/3 in the sixth over.
Mohammed Siraj (1/21), after troubling Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma (in his 200th T20 as captain), struck first for RCB when he had Ishan Kishan perishing at the deep. Soon after, Topley castled Green. And then, Bengal pacer Akash Deep ended Rohit’s painstaking stay.
Varma then stepped up, executing his strokes perfectly. Du Plessis brought leg-spinner Karn Sharma on and the latter responded by dismissing Nehal Wadhera and Tim David to regain the momentum for RCB. But Varma lifted his game when the chips were down again. It wasn’t enough for Mumbai though.
