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Follow UsWell, a Virat Kohli ton in vain is not how the Royal Challengers Bangalore fans would have wanted to end this season. After being asked to bat first, RCB managed to set up a decent total of 197 runs in the first innings.
Decent, the younger brother of good, is not good enough. And not against this Titans’ side, definitely.
Before this game, M Chinnaswamy Stadium witnessed teams successfully defend totals in four out of the six games. RCB’s own bowling attack performed much better while defending a total this season, and it probably didn’t seem a bad toss to lose at that point in time.
With a clinical performance, the Titans proved to us why these numbers don’t matter.
At the end of the league stage, Chinnaswamy hosted seven games and teams won four games while batting first, and three games batting second.
So, what should teams do here? Bowl first and chase what’s on the board, or bat first and back the bowlers to defend it?
On Sunday, Gujarat won the toss and opted to chase. Understandable, considering their own strengths and the rain threat looming large in Bangalore.
Maybe, that’s the clue to solving the Chinnaswamy puzzle.
Focussing on your strengths.
Outside RCB, the other teams to win here include Lucknow Super Giants, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Gujarat Titans.
Given the trueness of surfaces and high elevation on offer in Bangalore, players are always going to enjoy batting here.
Teams then have the freedom of batting how they want to, without having to worry too much about the external conditions.
Here, defending differential has been defined as the difference between a team’s average first-innings batting score and their average second-innings bowling score.
Similarly, the chasing differential is the difference between a team’s average second-innings batting score and their average first-innings bowling score.
RCB, CSK and KKR are all teams that have preferred setting totals and defending them, as opposed to letting the opposition decide what needs to be chased.
On a similar note, the RCB batters started off strongly and ended with 197 on the back of a flawless Kohli ton.
On the other hand, GT and LSG are outliers to this in their own ways.
Firstly, it’s no secret that GT love chasing, having won over 80% of the games while doing so. They have been so good while pacing their chases that they’ve never really broken a sweat while going at a target.
LSG, meanwhile, are the only team that played opposite to their preferred mode of play and still ended up on the winning side. That was thanks to some brilliant individual performances from the likes of Marcus Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran.
If the King showed the way to bat in these conditions, the Prince followed his lead.
Chasing a just-about-par 198, RCB bowlers did go past the bat a fair bit with the new ball. Unfortunately, without much success.
And once the new ball stopped doing any tricks, Shubman Gill and Vijay Shankar cashed in on some poor bowling.
In some sense, this was also a microcosm of RCB’s IPL 2023.
Their batters gave them consistent starts at the top, only for the middle order to wither away. One of the top 3 batters would then have to stay till the end to ensure they had something to bowl at.
With the ball, their new ball bowlers gave them early breakthroughs at regular intervals, only for the rest of the attack to release the pressure in the middle overs.
On Sunday, the lack of early breakthroughs meant that Gujarat were always going to be ahead of the hosts. While the scoreline might not suggest that, those who saw the game would vouch for how effortlessly Gill killed the chase.
Reminiscent of many knocks played by the master himself.
With the sun having set on RCB’s season, their think-tank will have their task cut out ahead of them. To reduce their dependency on the ageing trio of Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, and Glenn Maxwell with the bat, and Mohammed Siraj with the ball.
The in-form Gujarat Titans enter the playoffs as table toppers, and on the back of a couple of clinical wins. They will want to leverage this form to win successive titles.
