In their Indian Premier League debut, Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Mumbai Indians by an eight-wicket margin thanks to an outstanding opening partnership between Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis.
RCB had a great start to their 2023 season at The Mangalam Chinnaswamy Stadium, defeating their opponents on both sides of the ball after just missing the IPL final the previous year.
RCB got off to a quick start with the ball. Harshal Patel was well-positioned to catch an outside edge from Ishan Kishan (10) before Reece Topley bowled Cameron Green (5), but the latter mysteriously dropped Rohit Sharma after an odd incident between Dinesh Karthik and Mohammed Siraj.
Rohit was less fortunate when he handed Karthik a catch for just one run three balls later, though his exit allowed Tilak Varma to step up with a quickfire 84 off 46 balls, carrying Mumbai to 171-7.
That outstanding effort proved to be in vain, however, with Du Plessis (73) and Kohli (82 not out) putting on a strong opening stand of 148, both bringing up half-centuries by the end of the 12th over.
While skipper Du Plessis walked with five overs remaining, lofting through to Tim David for a simple catch, Mumbai never looked likely to break the momentum of RCB, who recorded a statement win.
Varma wastes no time
With his 84-ball innings, Varma helped Mumbai to a decent total while averaging a boundary per 3.5 deliveries.
In the early going of the IPL this season, only Jos Buttler (who hit a boundary every 2.2 balls in the Rajasthan Royals’ victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad) has had a better such rate than Varma, who hammered nine fours and four sixes out of the 46 balls he faced.
Sadly for the 20-year-old, Mumbai’s bowlers were unable to generate much momentum, and RCB’s top-order batsmen were in similar form.
Fifty up for Kohli
RCB never looked likely to fall short in their chase of 172, with Kohli taking centre-stage to bring up a personal IPL landmark.
With his knock of 82 runs from 49 balls, Kohli recorded his 50th score of 50 runs or more in the IPL. Only David Warner (60) has more half-centuries in the competition’s history.