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Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) got off to a winning start in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 as they defeated Sunrisers Hydera🃏bad (SRH) by 10 run🌠s on Monday, September 21.
Devdutt Padikkal impressed one and all with a fiery half-century and added 90 runs for the first wicket partnersh𒉰ip with Aaron Finch. However, both Padikkal and Finch l🐼ost their wickets in quick succession, reducing RCB to 90/2 in the 12th over.
Virat Kohli failed to score anything substantial as he fell prey to Thangarasu Natarajan. But A🎃B de Villiers held the innings from one end, and his late cameo propelled RCB to 163/5 in twenty overs.
Chasing 164, SRH couldn’t capitalise on a fluent start from Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey as a dramatic middle-order𒀰 collapꦆse saw them bundling out for 153.
De Villiers amazed by his own innings
De Villiers, who scored 51 runs off 30 balls, later remarked that even 🔯he was not able to believe that there were no signs of rustiness in his batting, even after months of inactivity in the wake of COVIౠD-19.
“I surprised myself, to be honest. We had a competitive game in South Africa which was quite nice. It was important for me to get out there and I arrived here with a little bit of confidence. There’s a lot of Indian talent coming through and Aussie talent. We saw Josh Phillippe tonight, he is a great prospect,” said the Proteas star in the ꦛpost-match conference.
‘Mr 360’ further stated that self-doubts began to grow in him after not playing the game for such a long time. But, he is pleased with his match-defining innings.
“When you come here and you haven’t played a lot of cricket so you do doubt yourself. But we have worked really hard in the last four weeks as a team and as an individual to get myself in some kind form. Tonight was a very pleasing start. Unfortunately got out form a run-out at the end but I am pretty happy with the basics that seem to be in place,” de Villiers concluded.
