IPL 2024: Rajasthan Royals kept title quest alive by defeating Bengaluru by 4 wickets
Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday stopped the winning campaign of Royal Challengers Bangalore for 6 consecutive matches in the Eliminator of IPL 2024, and with the same, it has also eliminated Bengaluru from this season of IPL. Rajasthan Royals have defeated Bengaluru by four wickets with 6 balls remaining in the eliminator at the world’s largest stadium, Narendra Modi Stadium. Due to the excellent performance of the bowlers, the Rajasthan Royals first allowed Bengaluru to score only 172 runs for 8 wickets and then achieved the target of 173 runs by losing six wickets in just 19 overs.
Rajasthan Royals will challenge Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second qualifier in Chennai on Friday to make it to the finals. The winning team will face the Kolkata Knight Riders in the final match on May 26th.
After bowling, while chasing the target, openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tom gave a good start to Rajasthan by making a partnership of 46 runs for the first wicket. Bengaluru bowler Ferguson gave the first blow to Rajasthan by bowling Tom, but Yashasvi Jaiswal continued his offensive. He made a partnership of 35 runs for the second wicket with captain Sanju Samson.
Bengaluru all-rounder Cameron Green kept Jaiswal away from a half-century by getting him caught by wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik. In the very next over, spinner Karan Sharma also sent captain Sanju Samsung to the pavilion. The next explosive batsman, Dhruv Jurel, also got run out after scoring a few runs due to a good throw by Virat Kohli. With this, Rajasthan’s score became 112 runs for 4 wickets.
After that, Rajasthan Royal’s innings were taken over by Riyan Parag and Simron Hetmeyer. Both of them made a partnership of 45 runs for the fifth wicket. Both of them scored 17 runs with two sixes and one four in 16 overs of the fourth and second innings of Bengaluru all-rounder Green, which became the reason for Bengaluru’s defeat.
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Fast bowler Mohammad Siraj raised hopes of Bengaluru’s victory by dismissing both of these batsmen within four balls in the 17th over. Rajasthan’s score was 160 for 6 wickets. Now only 13 runs were needed from 12 balls to win. Then Rajasthan’s explosive batsman Rovman Powell gave a memorable victory to Rajasthan by scoring 14 runs in the over of fast bowler Ferguson.
Earlier, while bowling, Rajasthan Royals bowlers, along with senior bowler Trent Boult, did not allow Bengaluru batsmen to make big partnerships by taking wickets at regular intervals and did not allow them to stay on the wicket. None of their batsmen could even touch the 40-run mark. Explosive batsman Rajat Patidar contributed the maximum 34 runs, veteran batsman Virat Kohli contributed 33 runs, and Mahipal Lomror contributed 32 runs.
When the Rajasthan Royals were bowling first, Powell took a brilliant catch of Bengaluru captain Faf-du-Plessis off the ball of fast bowler Trent Boult in the powerplay. He came running fast from deep midwicket and took the catch by lunging forward. Bowler Trent Boult troubled the Bengaluru batsmen a lot with his swing and line-length and did not allow them to score runs quickly, due to which Bengaluru managed only 50 runs at the loss of one wicket in the powerplay of 6 overs.
Veteran batsman Virat Kohli, as usual, wanted to play long innings, but spinner Yuzvendra Chahal tempted him by bowling the ball forward in the eighth over. Virat Kohli hit the ball in the air, but he could not give distance to the ball, and due to the big boundary, the fielder caught the ball, and Virat Kohli failed to make a big score.
A flurry of records:
Kohli became the first batsman to do this
Virat Kohli has become the first batsman to complete 8,000 runs in the IPL. He needed 29 runs to achieve this big feat, which he achieved. He has so far scored 8004 runs in 252 matches at an average of 38.66 and a strike rate of 131.97, which includes 55 half-centuries and 8 centuries. Apart from him, no batsman has been able to touch the figure of 7,000 runs till now.
Ravi Ashwin joins special club
Rajasthan spinner and veteran bowler Ravichandran Ashwin has become the fifth bowler to take 180 or more wickets in the IPL. He has achieved this position in 211 matches with an economy rate of 7.10. He has joined the clubs of Yuzvendra Chahal, Piyush Chawla, Dwayne Bravo, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Chahal took most wickets for Rajasthan Royals
Star spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has become the bowler taking the most wickets from Rajasthan. Chahal has taken 66 wickets with an economy rate of 8.41. He has broken the 11-year-old record of Siddharth Trivedi, in which Siddharth Trivedi took 65 wickets for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL between 2008 and 2013.
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