While Indian cricket fans ponder the future of one star wicketkeeper-finisher, there’s another in his mid-30s showing he has still plenty to offer. After getting them home in a nervy chase in their season-opening victory, Dinesh Karthik pulled Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) out of the doldrums and pushed them over the line, by four wickets chasing 170, against Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Tuesday.
Karthik’s crafty 23-ball 44* at the Wankhede Stadium handed RR this IPL season’s first defeat. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (2/15)—with flight, dip and turn—looked like taking the game away from his former team but Karthik, calculated as ever, played out his last over (the innings’ 17th) to script a calm finish.
RCB had laid a solid 55-run opening foundation to the chase before Chahal, brought in soon after the powerplay, had Faf du Plessis caught at long-on. Anuj Rawat was caught behind the next over. Virat Kohli, in search for runs, went searching for a single that wasn’t there. He was run out scrambling back at the bowler’s end as Chahal collected the throw from a diving Sanju Samson. The next ball, Chahal got one to rip back into the left-handed David Willey to bowl him.
Suddenly, RCB were 62/4, and after Sherfane Rutherford too was out, Karthik walked in with 83 needed at more than 10 an over. He immediately swung the momentum, hitting R Ashwin straight for a six and four while also reverse-sweeping him in the 14th over that yielded 21 runs. Such was his repertoire that Karthik also swept Navdeep Saini for four the next over. Shahbaz Ahmed too got into the act, pulling and squeezing yorkers out for boundaries. The two brought up a 67-run stand in 33 balls, bringing the equation down to 15 off 12. Karthik wasn’t going to let it slip from there.
{{/usCountry}}Suddenly, RCB were 62/4, and after Sherfane Rutherford too was out, Karthik walked in with 83 needed at more than 10 an over. He immediately swung the momentum, hitting R Ashwin straight for a six and four while also reverse-sweeping him in the 14th over that yielded 21 runs. Such was his repertoire that Karthik also swept Navdeep Saini for four the next over. Shahbaz Ahmed too got into the act, pulling and squeezing yorkers out for boundaries. The two brought up a 67-run stand in 33 balls, bringing the equation down to 15 off 12. Karthik wasn’t going to let it slip from there.
{{/usCountry}}RCB’s win was also set up by the bowlers who extracted early movement from the wicket. Left-armer Willey, after a couple of outswingers that Yashasvi Jaiswal edged and missed driving, knocked down the stumps with one that held its line and sneaked between bat and pad.
Such was RCB’s discipline with the ball that Jos Buttler was crawling at 10 off 14 balls in the powerplay. Their fielding could not back up the quality bowling, though. Buttler was dropped twice in the seventh over—Akash Deep let one through off his own bowling and three balls later Willey failed to get a hand running across the leg side boundary to a swirling shot.
It’s bad enough to give Buttler a life, worse if he is coming off a century. So the next ball was deposited over long-off for six. Devdutt Padikkal creamed a couple of on-side sixes in a 70-run partnership that was beginning to open up. Just then, in the 10th over, Harshal Patel got him with a slower one, Kohli taking a smart catch pedalling back from mid-off.
Du Plessis had held back Wanindu Hasaranga until the ninth over, and Samson handed the leggie a soft caught and bowled dismissal in his second over. Buttler (70*, 47b) and Shimron Hetmyer (42*, 31b) couldn’t find the big hits against Hasaranga and Patel. They did in the last two overs that saw 42 runs scored, Buttler smacking four sixes and Hetmyer finishing the flurry with one to swell RR’s total from 127/3 in the 18th.