Internet Desk: Royal Challengers Bangalore produced a clinical performance with the ball as they beat the Delhi Daredevils by 15 runs in their first Indian Premier League match at home on Saturday.
Chasing 158 for a win, Delhi ended at 142 for 9 and young Rishabh Pant’s 57 off 36 balls went in vain as RCB bounced back from their defeat against defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad in the tournament opener on April 5.
Delhi lost wickets at regular intervals in the light of some tight bowling from RCB and none of their specialist batsmen did stay for long to give company to Pant. The shot selection of most of the Delhi batsmen left a lot to be desired.
Delhi though were in the hunt till the closing stages of the match as they needed 37 from the final four overs and 21 from the final two but Amit Mishra consumed a lot of deliveries without adding much to the scoreboard.
That added pressure to Pant who was out in the final over and with it Delhi ended at 142 for 9 to lose their first match of the tournament.
Billy Stanlake, Iqbal Abdulla and Pawan Negi took two wickets apiece for RCB.
Opting to bat first, RCB scored 157 for 8 from their allotted 20 overs on the back of a brilliant 69 off just 37 balls from Kedar Jadhav.
Jadhav produced an excellent innings as he shifted gears from being watchful to hitting a flurry of big shots to single-handedly take RCB to a competitive total.
Jadhav hit five fours and as many sixes in his 37-ball knock. He hit Amit Mishra for two fours and as many sixes to take 24 runs from the 13th over.
But he was a lone hand against a clinical Delhi bowling attack and none of the other RCB batsmen could contribute much with captain Shane Watson’s 24 being the next highest.
Once Delhi captain Zaheer Khan ended Jadhav’s innings in the 17th over, RCB could add just 15 runs off the remaining three overs.
For Delhi, Morris took three wickets for 21 runs while Zaheer grabbed two wickets from 31 as Delhi bowlers produced a disciplined show.
With inputs from PTI.