Virat Kohli was pivotal to RCB’s win over CSK© AFP
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) continued their rampant run in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, securing their sixth consecutive win of the season to qualify for the playoffs. Up against 5-time champions Chennai Super Kings in their final league game of the season, RCB put in a heroic performance to book a spot in the playoffs. Courtesy of their progression, RCB also registered a stunning first in the history of the T20 league, becoming the only team to qualify for the playoffs after winning just one game in the first half (7 games) of the league campaign.
The Bengaluru side had only secured a solitary win in the first 7 games of the campaign and were a single defeat away from officially being knocked out of the race for the playoffs. But, the entire unit pulled up its socks and delivered a stunning performance match after match to create history.
The 6-game winning run RCB are on at the moment is their second best in the league, having previously won 7 matches on the trot in 2011 when they finished runners-up.
Bengaluru needed to win the match by 18 runs or more after they posted 218/5 at the M Chinnaswamy stadium. With the ball, RCB restricted CSK to 191/7 and with both sides level on 14 points, Bengaluru went through to the play-offs on net run rate.
“What a night. Unbelievable and such a great atmosphere, such a pleasure to finish off the season at home with a win. Batting first, I think it was the hardest pitch I have ever played on in T20s. Myself and Virat were talking about 140-150 after we came back from the rain break. The communication from the umpires was there was a lot of rain on the pitch, they wanted to push the game and that makes sense. When we came back, my goodness, I was telling Mitch Santner it was like a day 5 Test match at Ranchi and to get 200 on that was unbelievable.
“The last 6 games the batters have batted with good intent and good strike-rate. We were slow earlier on and we wanted more intent and that was awesome,” Du Plessis said after the match.
The Bengaluru side will now play in the eliminator on Wednesday in Ahmedabad.
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