The latest season of Indian Premier League has already reached into its halfway stage. And last night AB De Villiers gave the best performance of the league.
Not just AB De Villiers but the complete Royal Challengers Bangalore team gave a brilliant performance finally, after giving a series of poor performances. They defeated Delhi Daredevils in the match last night by 6 wickets.
Before the match, the toss was won by RCB and they chose to bowl first.
In the second innings, the skipper of the team, Virat Kohli went back to pavilion after scoring 30 runs in 26 balls, smashing 2 fours and 1 four. Virat Kohli was all set to hit another four and it had almost reached the boundary when Trent dived in and caught the ball in his hand.
The star player of the match was AB De Villiers who gave a thrilling performance last night and remained unbeatable at the score of 90 runs in 39 balls. He made the ball reach on every corner of the ground by smashing 10 fours and 5 sixes. What an exceptional performance it was.
Everyone was impressed with his performance last night. From cricketers from around the world to all the fans of RCB, everyone was praising AB De Villiers performance.
Here’s what Gautam Gambhir, the skipper of Delhi Daredevils said about AB De Villiers and about the match :
“I thought AB took the game away from us, the way he batted. We were very much in the game after scoring 175. At one point getting to 150-155 looked difficult. It was a bit tacky in the first six overs. Shreyas was unbelievable, Pant was unbelievable too. Our spinners could have bowled better against AB in the first six overs. When the spinners were bowling the ball was gripping as the ball was new, the seam was new, one wicket there and it was our game. AB took on the spinners and got away with it. (On Boult’s catch).
It’s the best catch I’ve ever seen. It was unbelievable because he’s a left-hander and he grabbed it in his right hand. It’s never easy. Things are getting desperate for us and hopefully we can turn things around when we go back home. We are professional cricketers and there can’t be excuses. Hopefully we can win a few and get the momentum in our favor. If you see the points table most of the teams are close to each other. So we need to reach the mid of the table first and then maybe in the top four.”
The skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore, Virat Kohli said:
“I think the 30 runs tonight is much better than the 90 I got in the last game. Two points are very crucial for us at this stage. We really thought about how to go about it, and we still have a few areas. The guy (AB) in our team gives us plenty of reasons to smile.
We understand situations, understand each other’s games well. He started off in a great way, my job then became to stick it out, string in a 65-70 run partnership. And then the opposition know they have to protect the game, rather than going for a win. It was a pity I couldn’t stay till the end, but Corey and Mandy did really well to support him. They kept taking singles with positive intent and that is great to see. But AB just keeps taking the game away and that’s why there’s no doubt why he’s the best player in the world.
[On Boult’s catch] It’s one of those things you see regularly in the IPL. It’s good for the fans as well and when you look back you don’t really feel bad getting out to a catch like that, full credit to Trent. Till the 15-over mark we were really good with the ball and with the bat even after we lost early wickets we strung in small partnerships. Plenty of positives but plenty of areas where we can improve as well.
The crowd has always supported us in huge numbers; if the team believes, the crowd believes in us as well. We need the energy of the crowd and the players and we’ll keep doing it for them, giving it our everything and keep pushing forward for them.”
And finally, the star performer of last night’s match, AB De Villiers said:
“It’s one of those nights when you see the ball well. The last two innings I wasn’t hitting it too well, but today I felt it coming off the middle, watched it nice and early, bought myself that extra split second to make decisions and that’s when I need to cash in. When you do get on top of the bowler, you have to take him down. This is the best crowd in the world; I love playing here.
They keep backing us every game but I must say, whenever you get into that zone that crowd is only a buzz. And most of it today was a buzz. [On the ‘genius’ on his bat] I didn’t give myself that name, MRF did it (smiles). It’s a privilege playing with these bats, it’s some good stuff.”
Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
