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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 Hyderabad (SRH) by 10 runs on Monday, September 21.
Devdutt Padikkal impressed one and all with a fiery half-century and added 90 runs for the first wicket partnership with Aaron Finch. However, both Padikkal and Finch lost 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 AB 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-order collapse 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 COVID-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 post-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.
