Virat Kohli’s continued sad form was a sign of things to come as Royal Challengers Bangalore was literally overthrown by Sunrisers Hyderabad, who galloped to an easy nine wicket win in Saturday’s one-sided IPL match. Kohli was fired again outside the off-stump of the first-ever delivery he saw when RCB was shot for a meager 68 in just 16.1 overs. This was the sixth lowest total in IPL history. The Sunrisers’ speed attack led by Marco Jansen (3/25 in 4 overs) and ably supported by Umran Malik (1/19 in 4 overs) and T Natarajan (3/10 in 3 overs) left the star-studded RCB- setup rattled with tempo, swing and zoom.
In response, SRH needed just eight overs as Abhishek Sharma butchered an already deflated RCB charge to score 47 from 28 balls accompanied by Kane Williamson (16 not out).
The win also moved SRH to second place with 10 points, while RCB, who is still third, will happily forget this game as a bad dream. But you’d wonder if Kohli can do the same as things are only going to get worse for one of today’s greats in the world of cricket.
The problems are very real and unfortunately you don’t see any corrective actions in his approach because the same kind of technical mistakes are repeated over and over.
Several years ago it was James Anderson and now it’s a Dushmantha Chameera and Marco Jansen exposing the big chink in Kohli’s armor.
There couldn’t have been a faster end to a match as Jansen cleared Faf du Plessis (5), Kohli (0) and Anuj Rawat (0) from the second, third and final delivery of the second left to take 8 for 3. to make.
In Jansen’s case, it was the movement of the seam off the pitch with a few straddling the pitch, some holding their line, while Natarajan got some movement in the air and Malik unleashed his lightning bolts with over 150 clicks.
In between, left arm spinner Jagadeesha Suchith (2/12) was also relentless, as RCB was never given any freedom of movement to get some momentum in their way.
It quickly became 20 to 4 when Natarajan got Glenn Maxwell (12) brilliantly caught halfway through by skipper Kane Williamson. The other player to reach double digits was Suyash Prabhudesai (15).
But it’s Kohli’s firing that would certainly deflate his legion of fans, as his problems outside the off-stump seem to be resurfacing.
Jansen caused trouble for Kohli during the South African Test series a few months back and again threw the ideal Test match length, full and made sure the ball took shape or held its line.
In the final game against Lucknow it was the back run that was in effect and Kohli’s tendency to knock off deliveries on off-stump channel with hard hands saw him undone, with Aiden Markram taking it in the second slip snapped.
There wasn’t much resistance from the other batters and when Dinesh Karthik (7) was caught on the leg side of Suchith attempting a sweep, it was all over for RCB.
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Once it was 47 to 6 after nine overs, the lower order looked deadly scared to the fast and furious Umran, as the ball seemed to hit the bat rather than the other way around.
Natarajan also kept up the pressure and smashed out the wickets as veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar finished the innings.
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