Lucknow: Stand-in skipper Jitesh Sharma conjured up a sensational unbeaten 85 to help Royal Challengers Bengaluru trump Rishabh Pant’s exceptional 118 and seal the team’s place in the IPL Qualifier 1 with a sensational six-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants, here Tuesday.
The Royal Challengers will now face Punjab Kings in the Qualifier 1 at Mullanpur on Thursday.
The RCB finished second on the table with 19 points, same as Punjab but finished behind them on net run rate — +0.30 against PBKS’ +0.37.
The RCB started in a hurry chasing an imposing 228, as Virat Kohli (54, 30b, 10×4) and Phil Salt (30, 19b) added 61 runs in a mere 5.4 overs before Jitesh (85) and Mayank Agarwal (41) taking them home, making 107 runs for the impressive unbroken fifth wicket stand.
They eventually made 230/4 in 18.4 overs.
But it started with Kohli and Salt playing risk-free cricket even in the Power Play, hammering 12 fours in that phase before Salt getting dismissed by pacer Akash Khan.
But Kohli continued to pierce the field for boundaries even after the Power Play, and a back foot punch that raced to the fence for a four off Akash was a treat to watch.
The shot also carried Kohli past the fifty-run mark off just 27 balls, but he could not convert that into something bigger.
The senior batter tried to bunt pacer Avesh Khan over long-off but could not clear Ayush Badoni in that position.
The Royal Challengers were 123 for four in 11.4 overs at that stage after losing out-of-form skipper Rajat Patidar and Liam Livingstone, who came in for injured Tim David, in the eighth over to pacer Will O’Rourke.
The RCB were still 103 runs away from victory and the asking rate was touching almost 13.
But Jitesh, who was saved by Digvesh Rathi’s back-foot no-ball on 49, and Agarwal pulverised LSG bowlers in their own style to take RCB home.
Jitesh, who had another slice of luck when Pant withdrew an appeal for run-out off Rathi when the batter was on 57, targeted the ‘V’ down the ground and the fine leg area through sweeps.
Agarwal, on the other hand, unboxed his trusted cut shots past the point fielder and covers to garner his boundaries with minimum risk.
The Karnataka batter was the aggressor in the beginning but settled into a far easier rhythm seeing the touch of his partner, also the stand-in captain as Patidar was used as an Impact Sub.
Fittingly, Jitesh brought curtains officially to the match, spanking O’Rourke for a hat-trick of sixes in the 18th over.
Earlier, Pant made a marvellous hundred (118 not out, 61b, 11×4, 8×6) and added 152 runs with Mitchell Marsh (67, 37b) for the second wicket to guide LSG to a massive 227 for three.
Throughout this season, Pant struggled to find his range, striking at a mere 107.
But Pant rewrote the script on the night, hitting the ball with the required amount of power and his strike-rate was hovering around 200.
Once he refrained from over-hitting the ball, timing too returned to Pant’s batting automatically.
The left-hander started the carnage by clattering Yash Dayal for 18 runs in the fourth over that included a sequence of 6, 4,4.
Pant only grew in confidence from that point, and it rubbed on his partner Marsh.
The Aussie batter made 19 off his first 16 balls but from there ‘Bison’ took his batting to a different level, starting with a pulled six off Romario Shepherd.
Pant soon reached his fifty off 29 balls, hitting leg-spinner Suyash Sharma for two successive fours.
Marsh, who crossed 600 runs for his finest IPL season in a decade, went past his fifty in 31 balls with a six off Suyash.
However, Marsh could not go further as he snicked Bhuvneshwar Kumar to stumper and stand-in captain Jitesh Sharma.
But that had not much effect on Pant as he motored on and brought up his first hundred of the season, and second overall in seven years, in 54 balls with a boundary off Bhuvneshwar.
It was a special way to get to a landmark too, carving an outside off-stump delivery over covers for a four. Pant celebrated in style too — a beaming style followed by an acrobatic somersault.
It was the quintessential Pant shot that carried all his idiosyncrasies in an innings in which he generally stuck to conventional ways of batting, as he later added 49 runs for the third wicket with Nicholas Pooran.
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