Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium lived a memorable night on Sunday, May 10, when the Indian Premier League played out one of its first genuine low-scoring thrillers of the season. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who hit his first IPL six in 10 years, turned out to be the hero for the defending champions when they needed him the most, delivering with both bat and ball.
RCB had lost steam in the playoffs race this season, having lost two back-to-back games against Delhi Capitals and Gujarat Titans. Desperately needing to snap that streak, RCB found a saviour in Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who delivered three wickets in the powerplay for them.
IPLRCB vs MI: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
An exceptional opening spell helped RCB reduce Mumbai Indians to 28/3 at the end of three overs. He later returned at the death to dismiss Mumbai’s best batter on the night, Tilak Varma, just when he was looking set to provide a big finish for MI in the first innings of the match.
Bhuvneshwar would have thought that his searing four-over spell, where he registered figures of 4/24, was enough for RCB to win the game. However, the seam bowler found himself in the thick of things once again, this time in the 19.4 over, with RCB needing 11 runs to win from the final three balls.
Heart pumping and doubts creeping in, Bhuvneshwar slashed his bat hard at a wide yorker from Raj Angad Bawa. The ball caught the meat of the bat and soared over the deep point fielder for his first IPL six in the last 10 years.
OG IPL fans would remember a time when Bhuvneshwar Kumar was touted as a pinch hitter. In the 2016 season of the IPL, during SRH’s title-winning campaign, Bhuvneshwar even scored 43 runs at a strike-rate of 160.
But over the years, those abilities had dwindled. And perhaps nobody on Sunday would have believed that Bhuvi could pull off something like that for the defending champions.
With the stage set for a final-ball thriller after Bhuvneshwar’s six, the RCB tailenders made sure that they did not bottle the game. Needing two runs to win, Bhuvneshwar and Rasikh Salam had the presence of mind to run hard between the wickets, put in a big dive and save the dying match for RCB.
MI keeper Ryan Rickelton, who frantically ran up to the stumps and broke the wickets, threw the ball away in frustration, knowing well that it had not reached him in time.
It was a telling indictment of the season Mumbai Indians have had, where they have often found themselves behind the competition owing to small but costly mistakes throughout the campaign.
KRUNAL CHANNELS HIS INNER MAXWELL
What was expected to be an easy chase after a good performance by the bowlers turned out to be a nightmare for RCB, who lost their talisman Virat Kohli for a first-ball duck, his second in a row this season.
Alarm bells rang as Deepak Chahar ran riot in the powerplay, removing Devdutt Padikkal with a sensational delivery in the off-stump channel.
Pressure mounted on the RCB side, as it had over the last two games, while Corbin Bosch made the best use of the up-and-down surface and troubled the RCB batters immensely. Several of those deliveries thudded into the batters’ bodies, underlining just how hostile Bosch’s spell had become.
It was here that RCB found a defiant Krunal Pandya. Promoted up the order after the dismissal of Rajat Patidar, Krunal handled RCB’s innings with extreme care. He navigated the raging spell from Bosch and only cut loose in the ninth over of the match.
As the others struggled around him, Krunal’s calculated counter-attack kept RCB in the game. At the back end of his innings, Krunal struggled with cramps, hopping around after nearly every ball that he faced.
But that did not stop him from really coming alive in the latter stages of his innings. More importantly, he played nearly 50 balls on a surface where the majority of the batters struggled and still managed to come away with 74 runs, once again playing a crucial innings for RCB like he had done in their title-winning season last year.
The match changed in the 18th over, when Krunal’s attempted six off Allah Ghazanfar was caught by Naman Dhir at midwicket. The fielder got tied up between his legs and threw the ball towards Tilak Varma near the boundary line. Tilak, perhaps thinking that Naman Dhir had stepped over the boundary cushions, did not attempt the relay catch, handing a huge reprieve to RCB.
Krunal made full use of that lifeline and hit two lusty blows off Ghazanfar in the next three balls. However, he was not able to carry on till the end, as he lost his wicket on the final ball of the same over while trying to hit Ghazanfar for the third six of the over.
The RCB dugout sank when Tilak completed the high catch, almost believing that the fate of the game had been sealed. But in hindsight, those two extra sixes after a major reprieve perhaps ended up winning RCB the match.
THE EVERGREEN BHUVNESHWAR KUMAR
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was named Player of the Match for his special spell of 4/24 and the match-winning six that tilted the game in RCB’s favour. In an era where nearly every batter swings for sixes, it was fitting that a low-scoring thriller was decided by a man who had not hit one in a decade.
Bhuvi’s array of deception, where he seemed to mix his trademark outswing with a deceptive knuckle ball, helped RCB take control of the match very early in the contest.
Bhuvneshwar wrecked the MI side in the powerplay, picking up the wickets of Ryan Rickelton, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav. Later, he returned to clean bowl a raging Tilak Varma as well.
After that four-wicket spell, Bhuvneshwar Kumar now holds the record for the most wickets after 11 games in IPL 2026. With 21 wickets to his name, one wonders why the player cannot be given a farewell T20I for India. Bhuvi has not played for the national side in almost four years, and it would perhaps be a fitting farewell for one of the special servants of Indian cricket.
IPL 2026 | IPL Schedule | IPL Points Table | IPL Player Stats | Purple Cap | Orange Cap | IPL Videos | Cricket News | Live Score
– Ends
Source link
[ad_3]
