A late charge led by a cameo from Dhruv Jurel was not enough for Rajasthan Royals as a century stand between captain Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell set up a thrilling seven-run win for Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Indian Premier League match here on Sunday.
Invited to bat, Maxwell (77 off 44 balls) and du Plessis (62 off 39 balls) shared 127 runs for the third wicket from only 66 deliveries to power RCB to 189 for 9 in 20 overs.
Devdutt Padikkal (52 off 34 balls) struck his maiden fifty of the season and Yashasvi Jaiswal made 47 for a 98-run partnership for the second wicket but the Royals were lagging behind in the run chase before gaining momentum in the last five overs.
Jurel played a small cameo of 34 not out off just 16 balls (2×4; 2×6) as the Royals scored 61 runs off the last five overs, losing three wickets in the process. But they fell short by seven runs in the end, reaching to 182 for 6 in 20 overs.
The Royals needed 20 runs off the final over bowled by Harshal Patel but could score only 12.
The Royals thus suffered their third defeat in seven matches but remained at the top of the points table due to a superior net run rate (0.844).
Harshal Patel (4-0-32-3) was the pick of the RCB bowlers while David Willey (4-0-26-1) and Mohammed Siraj (4-0-39-1) also played their parts.
RCB dealt a huge blow to RR when Siraj bowled a nip-backer to beat the defence of the dangerous Jos Buttler, cleaning him up for a two-ball duck in the first over.
Having scored consistently in the last few matches, Padikkal ended his drought of a half-century as he struck one six and seven fours during his innings. Padikkal was dismissed by Willey, with Virat Kohli taking his 100th catch in the IPL.
Only two players, Suresh Raina (109 catches in 205 matches) and Kieron Pollard (103 catches in 189 matches) have taken more catches than Kohli in IPL history. Padikkal’s opening partner Jaiswal played some spectacular strokes in the powerplay post which RR were placed at 47 for 1.
Both Padikkal and Jaiswal perished in quick succession and in that phase, RR also could not find a boundary with Willey keeping it tight.