Srikar Bharat and Glenn Maxwell played unbeaten knocks of 78 and 51 respectively as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Delhi Capitals by seven wickets in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 encounter here at the Dubai International Stadium on Friday.
Delhi Capitals finished at the top spot in the points table and now the side will square off against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Qualifier 1 on Sunday. On the other hand, RCB finished at the third spot and Virat Kohli’s team will face Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Eliminator on Monday. Chasing 165, RCB got off to the worst start possible as Devdutt Padikkal (0) was sent back to the pavilion in the very first over by Anrich Nortje. The Proteas pacer did not stop there as in his next over, he got the big fish Virat Kohli (4) and RCB was reduced to 6/2.
AB de Villiers and Srikar Bharat then got together at the crease and the duo retrieved the innings for RCB. Both batters put on 49 runs for the third wicket, but as soon as the innings started coming on track, Kohli’s side lost the wicket of de Villiers (26), still needing 110 runs to win from 63 balls.In the 14th over, Glenn Maxwell was dropped two times — once by Shreyas Iyer and once by Ravichandran Ashwin and as a result, RCB remained in the hunt to chase down 165.
In the end, Bharat and Maxwell maintained their composure to guide RCB to a win. On the last ball, RCB needed five for a win, and Bharat ended up hitting the ball for a six.