Virat Kohli proved a point by taming the spinners while Will Jacks powered to his most high-profile hundred as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) gave another improved account of themselves, beating Gujarat Titans by nine wickets in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
RCB’s third win of the tournament in 10 games in the Ahmedabad heat still couldn’t lift them from the bottom of the points table. But it at least send a message to their loyal fan base that they will continue to fight in their remaining games.
GT got 42 runs in their first six overs, 96 in the middle overs and 62 at the death to set up a 201-run chase for RCB. These are what used to be par scores for every phase. They no longer are. The batters have given ample evidence of that in IPL 2024.
Jacks’ astonishing power-hitting (100* – 41b, 5×4,10×6) trumped Shahrukh Khan’s 58 (30b, 3×4, 5×6), RCB second lead Kohli (70* – 44b, 6×4, 3×6) and bettered Sai Sudharsan’s 84 not out (49b, 8×4,4×6) as the team made short work of GT’s 200/3 in 16 overs.
RCB’s acceleration was remarkable, in them being 98/1 after 10 overs and how they were able to smash 108 runs in the next six overs and win, with only one wicket down and with 24 balls to spare.
At the half-way stage of RCB’s innings, Jacks, the big-hitter from England, was batting on a run-a-ball 16. He was unable to connect a lot of his heaves against spin while Kohli was playing a commanding innings, taming GT’s skilful spin trio of Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmed and Sai Kishore.
That’s when Shubman Gill introduced pacer Mohit Sharma. Jacks made some room and deposited him for maximum over mid-wicket. The 25-year-old said the confidence to hit big through the innings came from his first six against Noor in the 14th over. Jacks muscled 58 runs in the next two overs to take RCB home.
Mohit, attempting to recover from his mauling against Rishabh Pant in the previous match against Delhi Capitals, was again at the receiving end. Jacks dented Mohit’s confidence further with two boundaries and three sixes in his over, spotting his slower balls early. Continuing his pyrotechnics, Jacks took to Rashid’s leg-spin, hitting his googlies at will over mid-wicket into the stands, from an identical base at the crease.
Having turbo charged from 17 off 17 to 94 off 40, Jacks launched T20’s most decorated leg-spinner over cow corner for six to complete the hundred and RCB’s win. Jacks was happy. Kohli was happier, for his team-mate and his own crafty spin-hitting – 61 of his 70 runs came against spinners at a strike-rate of 179.41. This after his middle-overs slow down against spin in the previous match against Sunrisers Hyderabad had come in for criticism though RCB won that game too.
“All the people who talk about strike rates and me not playing spin well are the ones who love talking about this stuff. For me, it’s just about winning the game for the team,” Kohli said. “And there’s a reason why you do it for 15 years – because you’ve done this day in, day out; you’ve won games for your teams.”