23/04/2015
At the halfway mark, it appeared that
MS Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings might
have had about 20 runs less especially
considering the start they'd gotten and
the fact that the hosts RCB nearly
chased down 200 in their last game at
the Chinnaswamy. All those
speculations were blown away by
Ashish Nehra, who in an intelligent
spell of T20 bowling ended with
astounding figures of 4-0-10-4!
Nehra started CSK defense of 181 by
bowling full and enjoying a hint of
inward swing (to the right-hander) on
a breezy Bangalore evening. His first
over cost his side just the four overs as
RCB's openers Rilee Rossouw and
Manvinder Bisla sought to see their
way in. In his next, he sent back both
the openers, Bisla thanks to a
stunning catch at mid-off by Faf du
Plessis and Rossow with an inswinger
that kept a tad low. Thanks to Nehra's
double strike, RCB had slipped from
being 31 for none in three overs to 38
for two in six.
Nehra came back for his final over as
late as the 17th over with RCB
requiring 59 runs to pull off an
unlikely win. The left-armer then put
the final nail in RCB's coffin by
dismissing the well-set Virat Kohli and
Harshal Patel off successive balls to
finish with a four-fer. By virtue of his
performance in Bangalore, Nehra
received the purple cap for becoming
the leading wicket-taker of the
tournament.
