IPL 2021 Matches 10 & 11: KKR v/s RCB & PBKS v/s DC. Bangalore and Delhi climb to the top two positions in the points table.

Hello everyone. Lets talk about the two IPL matches we witnessed on 18th April. It was the first double header of this season and Royal Challengers Bangalore was up against Kolkata Knight Riders in the afternoon match and Punjab Kings was up against Delhi Capitals in the evening match. The first game was played at Chidambaram stadium and second game was at Wankhede.

Let's start with the first match. Virat Kohli won the toss and asked Eoin Morgan and decided to bat first. Runs on the board up-front has been the key to success for every team on this ground and Bangalore too wanted to put Kolkata under the pressure of runs when they would come out to bat in the second inning. Bangalore didn't have a good start and both Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar were dismissed by Varun Chakraborty in the second over. But Eoin Morgan for some reason decided not to give Varun the next over and that allowed Devdutt Padikkal and Glenn Maxwell to settle down. Maxwell started playing his shorts as soon as he came out to bat and Padikkal looked more towards keeping the strike rotating. Padikkal was later dismissed by Prasidh Krishna on 25 runs but Bangalore had gotten a good platform for AB de Villiers to come next. And ABD did what he's known for. Maxwell made 78 off 49 balls and ABD made 76 off 34 balls. Both hit 9 fours and 3 sixes each and Bangalore made 204 in their 20 overs. It was a very good score for this wicket and Kolkata needed to bat tremendously well to chase it down.

Shubham Gill played some shots early on for Kolkata but was dismissed on 21 runs by Kyle Jamieson. He made those runs just in 9 balls. Rahul Tripathi came in next and tried maintaining the run rate along with Nitish Rana. But neither of them stayed for long despite getting the start and Tripathi was dismissed on 25 runs and Rana could make only 18. Eoin Morgan, Shakib Al Hasan and Andre Russel made 25+ runs each but the match never seemed to be out of Bangalore's grip. Kolkata needed 90 runs in the last 6 overs and they could make only 51. Mohammad Siraj conceded just 1 run in the 19th over while Harshal Patel conceded just 4 runs in the final over and dismissed Andre Russel on the first ball of the over. Jamieson picked up 3 wickets and Chahal and Harshal picked up 2 each. 

Bangalore would be mighty pleased with their performance as they did well both with the bat and the ball. Maxwell and ABD have been in good form with the bat and Harshal Patel, Kyle Jamieson and Mohammad Siraj have been impressive with the ball.

Kolkata would be disappointed to lose two back-to-back matches now and Eoin Morgan hasn't been at his best for them yet. Some of his decisions in the first inning were difficult to understand and he's had his third consecutive failure with the bat. Dinesh Karthick too needs to score runs. The only positive for Kolkata would be Andre Russell's batting as he was able to make some runs.

Bangalore stay on top of the points table with 3 wins in 3 matches  and Kolkata slip to the sixth position with 1 win in their 3 matches. 

Moving on to the next match now, Delhi won the toss and decided to bowl. KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal took on the Delhi bowlers and scored 50 runs in just 5 overs. Mayank made 69 off 36 balls and KL made 61 off 51 balls. Punjab looked strong to make 215+ at the mid-inning stage but the run rate came down once both the openers were dismissed. Deepak Hooda and Shahrukh Khan made quick 22 and 15 runs respectively and they scored 16 runs in the last over to take Punjab's total to 195 in 20 overs. Delhi needed 196 runs to win the match.

Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan gave an explosive start to Delhi as they made 57 runs in first 5 overs. Both batted aggressively and the required run-rate was never a problem throughout the chase. Arshdeep Singh was impressive with the ball yet again as he gave away 21 runs in 3 overs and got the wicket of Prithvi Shaw who made 32 runs off 17 balls. The star for Delhi was Shikhar who made 92 runs and missed out on a well deserved century. Jhye Richardson bowled a perfect yorker to bowl him out. But the chase proved way too easy for Delhi as they won the match with 10 balls to spare. Marcus Stoinis stayed not out on 27 off 13 balls and Lalit Yadav stayed not out on 12 off 6 balls. Punjab's team would think that they could have scored 15 more runs but Delhi bowled well in the middle overs to pick up wickets and bring the run rate down.

Rishabh Pant was not very impressive with his captaincy but neither was KL Rahul. But both teams would be happy with their batsmen being among the runs. It's their bowlers who need to perform better in the next matches.

Talking about the next match, we will have Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings facing off each other in the 12th match of the season. Both teams have won their last match and would be looking to continue the winning streak. Let's see whose streak goes unbroken. Read about that match here on Tuesday morning.