IPL Season 5 - Match 21 Pune Vs RCB

DLF IPL Season 5 - Match 21

Pune Warriors Vs Royal Challengers, Bangalore
at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

Pune Warriors won the toss and elected to bat.  In-form openers Uthappa and Ryder provided the ideal start for the Warriors.  Ryder fell for 34 trying to hit a six.  Ganguly joined Uthappa and stayed away from strike most of the deliveries, taking a single and allowing Uthappa to get the strike.  Uthappa continued to attack the bowling.  Ganguly fell for 6 off 8 deliveries trying to hit a six on the off side.  Samuels joined Uthappa and played some attacking shots.  Uthappa fell for 69 off 45 balls.  Star batsman Steven Smith came in next.  He could not score much and was run out.  There was some tight bowling from RCB at this stage.  Pune Warriors didn't take risk though they had some wickets left.  Warriors' inability to use the last 5 overs resulted in a score of 182/6 from 20 overs.  Proper approach would have taken them close to 200.

RCB lost Dilshan early trying to play an improvised shot.  Mayank Agarwal could contribute only 9 runs.  Kohli and Gayle played quite cricket for sometime.  When Kohli got out for 16, the score was 72/3 in the 12th over.  Things were looking bright for the Warriors.  But 5 consecutive sixes by Gayle in one over from Rahul Sharma changed the match and RCB came back into the match.  Gayle got out making 81 off 48 deliveries.  Saurabh Tiwary and AB De Villiers continued playing their shots.  De Villiers in particular played some improvised shots including one six off reverse sweep.  28 runs were required off the last two overs.  Dinda bowled a magnificent penultimate over conceding just 7 runs.  21 runs were required off the last over and Ganguly had the option of bowling either Nehra or Samuels.  Ganguly decided to go with Nehra considering his experience under similar circumstances in the past.  But Nehra bowled a very bad over and RCB achieved the target off the last ball.  3 runs were required off the last ball.  Tiwary hit a six to win the match for RCB.  RCB won by 6 wickets and tasted success after 3 successive losses prior to this match.