Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday night to register their first win of IPL 2022. Having lost the first match to Punjab Kings, Faf du Plessis' team needed a win in this match and it was their bowlers who set it up for them by bowling a strong Kolkata Knight Riders batting unit for 128. But the RCB batters made heavy weather of chasing down the smallish total after the top order crumbled in the face of some accurate bowling by Umesh Yadav.
David Willey and Sherfane Rutherford steadied the innings and the young Shahbaz Ahmed took the team closer to the target. RCB had the experienced Dinesh Karthik in its ranks but they decided to send Ahmed up the order and the trick worked as the youngster hit some important boundaries to bring the asking rate down and then Karthik played the perfect finisher's role to take the team home in the last over.
When asked about the decision to hold Karthik back, RCB captain du Plessis said that they wanted to use Karthik's experience towards the end of the innings.
"Just the experience towards the end. Cool, calm head. The runs were never really too far away from the balls (required run-rate). We always felt, from the side at least, if we could keep wickets in hand then that would be the key.
"If they were going to beat us they were going to bowl us out and we were going to beat them then we had to keep wickets in hand till the end. Just to have that calmness coming in towards the end. He's probably as close to being ice cool as MS Dhoni can get in the last five overs, so his experience is extremely valuable," du Plessis said.
Karthik, who was with Kolkata Knight Riders till last season remained unbeaten on 14 off 7 deliveries. He had played an important cameo in the first match against Punjab Kings as well.