Skipper Faf du Plessis continued his red-hot form by smashing 55 off 44, while Glenn Maxwell also struck 54 off just 33 as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) thrashed Rajasthan Royals (RR) by a huge margin of 112 runs in match No. 60 of IPL 2023 in Jaipur. Chasing a target of 172, the Royals’ batting line-up collapsed miserably as they registered the third-lowest total of 59 in the history of the competition.
Talking about how the game panned out, du Plessis won the toss and opted to bat first. Virat Kohli played a scratchy innings of 18 off 19, but du Plessis and Maxwell came to the rescue again. The pair added 69 runs for the second wicket, while it was left-hander Anuj Rawat who provided the late flourish for the visitors. He smashed an unbeaten 29 off just 11 with three fours and two sixes as his side managed to go past the 170-run mark.
In reply, RR never looked like in the run-chase. Openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler both bagged a duck, the fourth for the latter this season. Captain Sanju Samson got dismissed for just four, while Joe Root scored ten. Shimron Hetmyer struck 35 off 19 with one four and four maximums, but wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals. Wayne Parnell recorded his best figures of 3/10 (3), while Michael Bracewell and Karn Sharma took two wickets apiece. With this win, RCB moved to the fifth position while RR are placed sixth in the table. For his solid spell upfront, Parnell grabbed the Player of the Match award.
Meanwhile, here are some of the important stats and numbers from Match No. 60 between Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League 2023:
16 – Dinesh Karthik is now joint-top with Rohit Sharma for registering the most ducks (16) in the IPL.
4034 – Faf du Plessis reached the landmark of 4000 runs in the IPL. He became the fourth overseas player after David Warner (6265), AB de Villiers (5162), and Chris Gayle (4965) to achieve the feat.
105 – Virat Kohli has now taken the second-most catches (105) by a fielder in the league. He surpassed Kieron Pollard’s tally of 103. Suresh Raina tops the chart with 109 catches.
59 – RR recorded the third-lowest total of 59 in the IPL. The top-two lowest scores were registered by RCB (49 against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017) and RR (58 against RCB in 2009).
4 – Jos Buttler has now recorded the most ducks (four) in IPL 2023. Karthik, Sunil Narine, and Krunal Pandya are tied in the second spot with three ducks.
112 – RCB achieved their largest victory in terms of runs (112) away from home. Previously, they won by a margin of 82 runs against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Sharjah in 2020.
3/10 – Wayne Parnell scripted his best bowling figures of 3/10 in the league. His previous best of 3/27 came for Pune Warriors India against the same opposition RR in 2013.
2 – For the second time, both RR openers got dismissed for a duck. Graeme Smith and Swapnil Asnodkar suffered an unwanted record against Deccan Chargers in the 2009 edition.
7 – Buttler became the seventh batter to record four ducks in an IPL season. The other six players are Herschelle Gibbs (2009), Mithun Manhas (2011), Manish Pandey (2012), Shikhar Dhawan (2020), Eoin Morgan, and Nicholas Pooran, both in 2021.
7.80 – Kohli has managed to score just 39 runs in his five innings at a mere average of 7.80 against RR.