23 May,2011 07:01 AM IST | | Sai Mohan
Skipper Vettori hails big-hitting West Indian's responsible effort to see RCB through
Royal Challengers Bangalore gave their fans a perfect leaving party with an eight-wicket win against defending Indian Premier League champions Chennai Super Kings here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium yesterday. Chasing 129 to end top of the points table, the duo of Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli added 80 for the second-wicket to virtually shut Chennai's hopes of a turnaround. Bangalore won with two overs to spare and will now travel to Mumbai for the first game of the two qualifiers on Tuesday.
Royal Challengers Bangalore's Chris Gayle plays a shot against Chennai
yesterday. Pic/AFP
Man of the match Gayle remained unbeaten on 75 to regain the Orange Cap from Shaun Marsh. His knock was struck at a rate of 150 ufffd almost 50 runs slower than his previous strike rate of 201 this IPL season. It took him only seven balls to clear the rope twice in the space of three balls off Doug Bollinger, but he showed lot of respect to R Ashwin, who went without a boundary for more than three overs before Gayle launched into the likes of Suresh Raina, Albie Morkel and Dwayne Bravo.
Even when Ashwin tossed it up, Gayle was unusually happy to concede a dot ball. The Jamaican picked the weaker links in the Chennai attack, making a conscious effort of staying to the finish.
Skipper Daniel Vettori acknowledged Gayle's responsible effort. "Chris was very determined to get the Orange Cap today. He knew exactly how many runs he needed to get there. The fact that we were chasing a small total gave him the freedom to give more respect to Ashwin, who has been phenomenal for Chennai this season.
Chris acknowledged that. If we were chasing 180 or 190, you would have seen a different Chris against Ashwin.
I think the method worked today," he said.
In the dying stages of the run-chase, Raina dropped Gayle as the ball popped out of his hand. That was followed by Gayle clearing the long-on fence, and thwarting one off the back foot towards long-off. When he struck the boundary that took Bangalore one run shy of victory, the crowd erupted, and Gayle saluted them by pointing towards his bat.
In what was a dramatic 10th over, Gayle struck the ball straight back to Albie Morkel who was down and hurting; immediately after the interruption, Gayle smashed a length ball over the mid-wicket fence. Two balls later, Kohli holed out at short fine-leg trying to play a cheeky shot. Saurabh Tiwary remained unbeaten on 13 as RCB avoided further hiccups.
Earlier, the win was largely set up by returning spearheads Daniel Vettori and Zaheer Khan who left Chennai in tatters at 25-4 before skipper MS Dhoni's quickfire 70 took them to a respectable 128-8.
Zaheer enjoyed lateral movement after Vettori elected to bowl. He bowled with four close-in catchers and quickly bowled Hussey with a peach of a delivery that deviated slightly after pitching. At the other end, S Aravind induced an outside edge off Murali Vijay after beating his bat on several occasions. Vettori's gamble of giving Zaheer a third consecutive over resulted in a wicket-maiden when Raina attempted a customary heave through mid-wicket, but his mistimed shot presented an easy catch to Kohli at point.u00a0
Wriddhiman Saha played and missed a few times against Zaheer before greeting Vettori with a gorgeous square cut. Two balls later, Badrinath tried to clear mid off but holed out to Mithun.
Thereafter, Dhoni added 42 runs with Saha but the lower-order crumbled quickly, leaving the onus on the Chennai skipper.
