Dinesh Karthik and Shahbaz Ahmed hit some fantastic shots to help Royal Challengers Bangalore come back from a batting slump and beat Rajasthan Royals by four wickets in the Indian Premier League Tuesday.
Buttler hit sixes in his unbeaten 70 off 47 balls as the Rajasthan Royals worked their way up to 169 for three after the RCB chose to bowl.
RCB lost four wickets in a row in 11 balls, and they were in trouble at 62 for four. Karthik (44 not out off 23 balls) and Ahmed (45 off 26) put together a 67-run partnership off just 33 balls to take the game away from the RR.
Karthik was able to get the team home in 19.1 overs. A victory for RCB was the second time the team had won in three games. It was the first loss for the Royals this season after winning two straight games.
At 55 for no loss in the seventh over, RCB looked like they would win the game. The Royals took a flurry of wickets, and the game turned on its head.
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The clever Yuzvendra Chahal (2/15), playing against a team he used to play for seven years, was a big part of the RCB’s downfall. He forced an error from Faf du Plessis (29), who mistimed a leg break and was caught at long-on, before dispatching left-hander David Willey (0) with a superb leg break.
Virat Kohli (5) was also run out by Chahal, who took and threw a brilliant catch and throw from Royals captain Sanju Samson, who led the team. When Trent Boult threw out Sherfane Rutherford, the score was 87 for five. This left RCB in a lot of trouble.
Karthik came into the middle, played some fantastic shots, including a reverse sweep off Ravichandran Ashwin, and took 21 runs in this over. That brought RCB back into the game.
With Ahmed, Karthik did most of the damage. They made their 50-run stand in just 21 balls.
A few days earlier, Buttler made a hundred in the previous game. He had to work for 47 balls on a slow Wankhede pitch before that. He was helped by Shimron Hetmyer, who was 42, not out off 31 balls at the other end. The two made an unbeaten 83-run stand off 51 balls together.
A lot of things went wrong for the Royals during Powerplay and reached 35 with the loss of opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, but they didn’t do very well (4).
They started playing their shots after the Powerplay. They made a 70-run stand with Devdutt Padikkal (37 off 29).
Another thing that helped the Royals was the way the RCB fielded. They dropped Buttler twice in the same over, bowled by Akash Deep. If that wasn’t bad enough, Buttler hit Akash Deep over long-off for a six in the same over.
After Padikkal was sent back to the dressing room by his former RCB teammate Harshal Patel, Samson (8) was bowled out by Wanindu Hasaranga in the first over.
After 12 overs, it looked like the ball was stuck on Samson. He gave the ball back straight away, leaving the Royals at 86 for three in their last three overs.
They found it hard to get big hits with RCB bowlers taking advantage of the weather.
Buttler took a step back and let Hetmyer go for the fences.
However, the English wicketkeeper was back to his fluent best. In the 19th over, he hit Mohammad Siraj for two sixes to reach 50.
In the 20th over, Akash Deep got a very close no-ball call. Then, Buttler hit him for two maximums over long-on, ruining his score.
Hetmyer hit a six over deep square leg to end the innings in style. The last over of the innings made 23 runs. In his unbroken run, Buttler did not hit a single four.
