IPL 2020: Eliminator – RCB vs SRH – Who Said What

The eliminator of the Indian Premier League 2020 saw action between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad. Both the teams were supposed to pour in their heart in this crucial match, but it was Sunrisers who saw their sun rising in the end. SRH clinched the match by six wickets. Batting first, RCB posted a below-average target of 132 runs on the board, where a half-century by AB de Villiers (56 off 43) became the backbone of their batting order.

Kane Williamson was named as the player of the match as he took his team home in a crucial match with his steady batting. Brief innings by Aaron Finch (32 off 30) added some contribution to the team’s score. Rashid Khan came with an economical spell but had to remain wicketless in a rare instance. Jason Holder turned phenomenal and picked three wickets for the team.

Chasing an ordinary target, the opening order failed for Hyderabad, but it was Kane Williamson and Jason Holder who shouldered all the responsibilities for the team. Williamson smashed a prolific half-century (50* off 44) to take the team home. Holder supported him well by adding a quickfire of 24* off 20. Adam Zampa leaked only 12 runs in four overs to maintain a brilliant economy. Mohammed Siraj picked two wickets for his team.

Losing skipper, Virat Kohli said

If you talk about the first innings I don’t think we had enough runs on the board. We made one helluva game in the second half, the positions we got ourselves into in the second half.. It is a game of margins and if Kane was taken there then it is a different ball game. Altogether they put us under a lot of pressure in the first innings. Few soft dismissals, few fortunate ones for them as well and we just didn’t have enough runs on the board. Maybe a bit of nerves, maybe a bit of hesitation, we need to be more expressive with the bat. We didn’t have any phases in the game where we got away from the opposition. We just allowed bowlers to bowl to the areas they wanted to and didn’t put enough pressure on them. In the last 2-3 games we have hit it straight to the fielders, lot of good shots going to the fielders.

It has been a strange kind of phase in the last 4-5 games. Couple of people have stood and had a good season, Devdutt is one of them and Siraj has had a good comeback. Yuzi has been solid as ever, AB has been solid as ever. Couple of positives for RCB and Devdutt is one of them, he stepped up nicely and getting 400+ runs is not easy. He has played with a lot of class and efficiency for the team. Very happy for him.

The others contributed but just not enough. That also tells you the strength of the teams in the IPL, no team is run away favourites as such and every team has strong players, one of the other reasons is playing in only three venues and there’s no home and away advantage. Similar conditions for everyone and that’s the reason this has been one of the competitive IPL this year. It was amazing to have had this opportunity to come out and play. There’s a bigger picture going around here and we are all contributing to that. To all our fans who have supported us like every year, we just want to thank them.

Winning skipper, David Warner said

As we knew we had to beat top three teams to make it into the play-offs. My nails are ok for the moment. They have been of great impact for us. We like to bowl Sandy and Holder five overs at the top. Then we try to bowl Rashid and Natarajan in the middle overs. Rashid has a lot of pressure on him to perform. Congratulations to Natarajan. Kane is our banker. He manages to stick in there and plays the pressure innings. I am running out of superlatives for these two blokes ( Rashid and KW). With the class of the batting line up, you knew that wicket had something in it. The boys bowled fantastically well in the middle overs. It is too early to say. We obviously have Delhi to play. We have been talking about their world class bowling side. But I am excited.

Player of the match, Kane Williamson said

Look it was a tough game. It was never going to be easy against a class side like RCB. The surface was a little tricky and chasing anything on it wasn’t easy. It was a challenge for us to restrict them to that kind of a total. They also had two world class spinners. We did well to go through their spells without losing too many wickets. Batting at 4 can vary a lot and becomes surface dependent. A few shots from Jason helped. The guys have been fighting hard. He(Holder) is cooler than me. The all-rounder role in the team has been well by him.