By B Shrikant
Mumbai, Apr 24 (IANS): If you get a chance to take the first strike, hit hard. Marco Jansen seems to be following this policy as he claimed all his three wickets in his first over of the match to put Sunrisers Hyderabad on course for a nine-wicket win against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Match 36 of IPL 2022.
On a pitch that looked firm, had a slight green tinge and was expected to offer movement early on, Sunrisers captain Kane Williamson won the toss and invited RCB to bat first at the Brabourne Stadium here on Saturday.
It was an uneventful first over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar in which RCB skipper Faf du Plessis scored five runs including a boundary.
The next six deliveries bowled by Marco Jansen, the 21-year-old South African pacer, changed the course of the match and put Sunrisers Hyderabad on course to their fifth successive victory, taking them to second position in the points table on a superior net run rate.
It was an eventful over as Jansen bowled two wides, was on a hat-trick at one time and eventually ended by sending back the top-three batsmen of Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Jansen started with a good-length ball pitched on off-stump and was met with a forward defensive push by fellow South African du Plessis. The second delivery was on the same line and length but nipped away slightly, beat the edge and rattled into the off-stump. RCB 5/1.
The second delivery too was on the good-length spot on the off-stump and held its line, Virat Kohli played for the slight movement but there was none and the ball took a thick edge and landed into Aiden Markram's hands at second slip. Kohli departs for another golden duck. RCB 5/2.
Glenn Maxwell cautiously negotiates the hat-trick ball, offering no shot as it pitches on the good length on the off-stump.
Jansen sends down two wides -- both pitching on the good length outside off. Maxwell offers no shot on the first and wildly slashes at the second and misses as it moves away a bit.
Of the fifth legal delivery of the over, pitched short of good length outside off, Maxwell plays a defensive push and scampers for a single.
The final delivery ball is a replica of the one that got Kohli and the only difference was that it moved away a bit and took the edge to Markram at the second slip, who dived to his right in front of the first slip to catch that. RCB 8/3 at the end of the second over.
Their top-three batsmen back in the dugout in the second over itself, Royal Challengers Bangalore could not recover. They went on to lose wickets at regular intervals as Maxwell and Dinesh Karthik failed to click for once and with T. Natarajan claiming 3/10 of three overs, Royal Challengers Bangalore were bundled out for 68 in 16.1overs, their second-lowest total ever in IPL history.
In reply, Abhishek Sharma hammered 47 off 28 deliveries as Sunrisers Hyderabad raced to 72/1 in eight overs in slightly better batting conditions to romp home to a nine-wickets win.