Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore from the front as RCB defeated Punjab Kings in an IPL 2023 match by 24 runs in Mohali on Thursday. Match no. 27 of the Indian Premier League 2023, marked the 34-year-old’s return to the captaincy role for his franchise, a duty that he stepped down from in 2021. While Faf du Plessis played as an Impact Player in the first innings, Virat Kohli provided a treat to the IPL fans by leading RCB for the first time in over a year.
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 24-run win became the talk of the town for the cricketing world as they defended a target of 175 runs by bowling out the Sam Curran-led PBKS side on 150 runs in the penultimate over. Interestingly, Curran filled in the captaincy shoes, due to the absence of regular PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan. While Kohli led the team to victory with a half-century in the first innings, he got hailed by an Indian cricket great for something he did in the second innings.
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“Bringing Hasaranga to bowl the third over was a masterstroke”
RCB were off to a flying start in the second innings as Mohammed Siraj dismantled Atharva Taide’s stump in the second ball itself. Kohli then decided to hand over the ball to star spinner Wanindu Hasaranga to bowl the third over. Speaking on Star Sports, Pathan heaped praise on the 34-year-old for bringing in Hasaranga in the third over itself, as the wrist spinner removed the timbers to bowl out Matthew Short for a cheap 8 off 7.
“He brought a different energy. Along with the energy, the decision-making – changing the bowling regularly. Bringing Hasaranga to bowl the third over was a masterstroke because he knew that Matthew Short is troubled by spin. So he brought spin and got a strong grip on the match,’ said Pathan on Star Sports. Meanwhile, Siraj dealt with another blow to PBKS by removing Liam Livingstone in the 4th over, which further reduced the home side to 27/3.
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Praising his call to bring Siraj in from the other end, Irfan added, ‘When Siraj dismissed Livingstone, he was brought from the other end, and then the fielding (Siraj’s run out of Harpreet Singh). It gets rubbed off when you bring in that much energy. From Virat Kohli’s energy, it seemed as though he had done the run-out.”
