It is certainly a Royal Challenge beating Bangalore. The men in red recorded their 4th consecutive victory and this time they beat a strong Chennai Superkings. Bangalore are now really well placed in this tournament and have taken the top spot in the league as they have won the most number of games.
Batting first Bangalore got the runs on the board courtesy Uthappa. Uthappa was simply brilliant today invoking memories of his first stint in international cricket. His strokeplay was fearless to say the least and it was amazing to see how far he could hit the ball. Before the Uthappa burst, I think the Chennai bowlers were doing well especially when they got rid of Kallis and kept Manish Pandey quiet. Tyagi made a good comeback but the Balaji and Ashwin went for runs today. When Chennai walked out a lot rested on the shoulders of Matthew Hayden but it didn’t help as he lost Parthiv Patel early and then had to bat with a struggling George Bailey. I couldn’t understand why Bailey was struggling as he is known to be a good striker of the ball in Australian domestic cricket. He has played on much faster tracks than the Chinnaswamy wicket and it was really bad to see him struggle, probably it wasn’t his day. This is the point where Chennai lost the game and Bangalore won it. They did well to keep Hayden off strike and let Bailey play most of the deliveries. Once Hayden was run out (I have a question, was the mongoose too short which is why he didn’t make it) the game was 99% in Bangalore’s favour as Chennai were missing the trump card MS Dhoni again. Raina and Vijay didn’t last too long but Badrinath put up a brave fight. It was good to see him play those innovative shots and probably just kept the hopes alive for Chennai at that stage. All in all it was a good all round performance by the Royal Challengers Bangalore and it is certainly a Royal Challenge beating them now.
Amidst all the T20 frenzy, there were two test matches being played. Australia beat New Zealand by 10 wickets and England have Bangladesh in control at Mirpur. The test match in New Zealand was dominated by the Aussies. Doug Bollinger helped impose a follow on and New Zealand put up a brave fight in the second innings. They did well to get a lead from a bad situation and all credit must go to McIntosh, McCullum, and Vettori. Australia, however cruised to their target of 106 runs without losing a wicket. Philip Hughes was fantastic as he blazed away to 89. What is interesting is that his career strike rate in tests in over 100. He is a good talent and will be one to watch in the future. However, he will lose his place once Shane Watson is fit. Coming to Dhaka, Bangladesh did well to reach 400 in the first innings and not allowing England to get a huge lead. In the second innings they are struggling with 6 wickets down. The thing that worries me about Bangladesh is the number of times their batting collapses. They get into a good position but then their batting collapses leaving them in taters. This is not new for them as we saw this in 2006 when they played Australia at Fatullah and against India earlier this year. They have talented players now and they have to make sure that their talent really counts.
Tomorrow, the Kings XI Punjab take on the Rajasthan Royals at Mohali. It will be interesting to see who gets the last spot in the points table.
Until then…ADIOS.
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