IPL 7, RCB vs. RR: Faulkner and Smith guide RR home

The IPL 7 show of Royal Challengers Bangalore against Rajasthan Royals was all stolen by Faulkner and Smith sharing a partnership of 85 runs off 32 balls leading RR to victory against the hosts RCB.  The dejected RCB defeated by toppers KXIP in their previous IPL face – off, gathered much drive as well as motivation for taking over the Rajasthan Royals this Sunday at chinnaswamy stadium. The formidable RR faced a defeat against SRH in their previous match which came as a shock to them.

However, RR are still finding IPL more comfortable than RCB having played 10 matches and scored 8 points. On the other hand RCB is still stuck at 6 points. In match against KXIP, RCB seemed to have batted in no certain direction. None of the batsmen put up a great show save AB de Villiers – the south African batsman. The biggest factor to worry for RCB is their Skipper and captain – Virat Kohli whose overall performance has been rather poor in this IPL season. With 20 as an average rate, Kohli managed to score 140 runs off eight outings. Chris Gayle scored 89 runs off 4 ininings and so too held an indifferent campaign. Even though he has a great strike rate of 156.14, he could not manage to stay longer at the wickets. The RR too didn’t show impressive batting skills in their last game, but they didn’t had any worries about it as they had a good score under their belt. Mitchell Starc – Australian pacer has been a great RCB performer.

Instead of Parthiv Patel, Virat Kohli went for opening the innings but in third over, returned back after trying to smash the ball. Chris Gayle is yet to make a good run in this season. He took a sedating start to the innings but soon smashed two boundaries in the first over by Pravin Tambe. Sanju Samson caught Gayle behind the stumps while he was trying to do a googly. This was the first IPL 7 match for Vijay Zol who pulled off 16 runs from 14 balls and 3 boundaries. No doubt, RCB is having a tough time this season.