Rain, Gayle hurt KKR as playoffs race intensifies

After Chris Gayle had mauled Brett Lee for four fours in the first over of Bangalore’s innings, it seemed rather a surprising move when KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir brought out Jaydev Unadkat for the second. 

At a friendly Prasanth Parameswaran sort of pace, the move was an undoubtedly risky one but perhaps calculated considering the Jamaican was off strike. Any payoff Gambhir was hoping to get disappeared first ball as Luke Pomersbach, brought in as replacement for T Dilshan hit a four and then handed the strike over to Chris Gayle. A six flayed over third man was followed by another some two tiers up the Chinnaswami stadium. A boundary crunched over extra cover rounded off 23 runs of the over. 

Some relief was provided to the bowlers as Gayle would fall next over after hitting yet another four for a 12 ball 38. The damage had been done. 44 runs had come in just 2.4 overs and the rain adjusted target of 102 in 13 overs became a paltry ask. His job done for the seventh match in a row now, Gayle only needed to watch lazily from the Royal Challengers Bangalore dugout as the giant scoreboard read that Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets under Duckworth-Lewis method. 


With this victory, Royal Challengers have reached the top of the table with 17 points while Kolkata kept the other contenders interested by slipping down to fourth position. 

While KKR were ultimately blown away by Gayle, it was their batting and rain that reduced the match to a 13 over affair that really cost them the game. Perhaps wary of the kind of starts RCB have been getting this season, their batsmen began with curious bout of overaggression as if trying to pre-empt Gayle. 

Eoin Morgan got out walking across his stumps to flick Zaheer Khan straight to square leg, Jacques Kallis charged down the track only to edge to the keeper while Gautam Gambhir tried to force the pace but only found a diving AB de Villiers at point. To their credit the Bangalore bowlers gave nothing to work with. They got the ball to swing and seam, and cleverly mixed up their length as KKR were left unable to even make their aggression pay. 

Tiwary, Yusuf fightback
 
Kolkata had been reduced to 30 for 3 in the 6th over before Yusuf Pathan and Manoj Tiwari took over. They took the score to 69 for 3 in the 11th over when rain began falling over Bangalore. More than two hours of play was lost due to intermittent rain, frustrating the 40,000-strong crowd and the visiting team. In the two overs that followed Pathan who struck 3 sixes in a 24 ball 36 and Tiwari who managed a painstaking 24 ball 19 managed to lift the score to 89/4. 

The match had been reduced to 13 overs per side and Bangalore was given a revised D/L target of 102 runs. Towards the end of the innings, Bangalore underwent a mini collapse. The wickets of Mohammad Kaif, Arun Karthik and Saurabh Tiwari fell in the space of six runs and 10 deliveries. 

The equation finally went to three runs from the last over before Challengers reached home with three balls to spare. However such was the impact of Gayle’s brutal attack that Bangalore it seems only conspired to add a trace of liveliness and modicum of excitement to what was by the 3rd over of the innings already a foregone affair.