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The high-stakes clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) lived up to its billing, with RCB emerging victorious in a nail-biting finish. The win not only secured their place in the IPL 2024 playoffs but also showcased the team’s fighting spirit and the emergence of a young hero.
Du Plessis Leads From The Front, But Dayal Steals the Show
It wouldn’t have been possible to play like that, especially when the pitch had become slow due to intermittent rain during Faf du Plessis’s innings. Du Plessis, not known for being an aggressive batsman, batted with composure to deal with the lively track, what could have been a booze to the flourishing bowler, sharing a steady partnership with Kohli at the top.
Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Faf du Plessis was rightly awarded the Player of the Match title for his knock of 54 and an excellent one-handed catch to dismiss Mitchell Santner in a pressure building situation in the last overs of the match. Du Plessis okay though thought the award should have gone to Dayal for his brilliant shot making especially handling the wet ball in the last decisive shots in the match.
As a testament to Du Plessis’ sportsmanship, however, he preferred to share his Special Moment of the Match for being named Man of the Match with young pacer Yash Dayal. Dayal who was given the task of bowling the last over when India was capable of mustering only 192 plus itself was rather calm and composed. No one could have thought that such a calm and composed player could deliver such a knock-out punch: holding his nerve and bowl out deadly MS Dhoni for just 11 and won RCB a well-contested match.
Du Plessis stated that he had instructed Dayal to trust his slower ball when the final over was left, as he himself had tried to bowl a few yorkers that night but found that bowlers have had issues with maintaining control of it. Fast bowling department of CSK bowled 13 full-tosses while a list A bowling of RCB bowled six full-tosses.
In one of the many dramatic moves on the fifth day of the Test Match held at the Chinnaswamy pitch, Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting was called for an important review.
It must be noted that the contribution of rain interruption in the formation of the match was crucial. The usually flat track of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore resembled a rockier wicket similar to what the Ranchi pitch offers, and more often looked like a fifth and final day of a Test match. The surface reduced bouncessdand made strokeplay challenging to both teams by becoming slow and largely requiring high amounts of energy. The setback of the game was rain which influenced the way Du Plessis and other batsmen had to change their strategies due to the wet, tricky batting pitch.
