Virat Kohli's Bangalore got off to a brilliant start in the 2020 Indian T20 League, beating David Warner's Hyderabad by 10 runs.
Bangalore were put in to bat first and despite the opening over struggle, openers Devdutt Padikkal and Aaron Finch set a glaring momentum for the batsmen to follow. Padikkal, playing his first-ever Indian T20 League game, showed no signs of nervousness whatsoever and went on to notch a maiden half-century in a mere 36 balls. AB de Villiers followed suit and did what he does best to take his side to 163/5 in 20 overs.
Hyderabad lost David Warner quite early, but Manish Pandey and Jonny Baisrtow made sure their team stays in the game. Yuzvendra Chahal, however, struck gold in the 12th over, dismissing Pandey, and what followed next was absolute mockery of Hyderabad. From 121/3, the team slumped to 153/10. The contribution from the batsmen read;
Top-three batsmen: 101 runs
Rest: 37 runs
Extras: 15 runs
Apart from Priyam Garg, none of the batsman below managed a score in double digits.
Bangalore’s best Powerplay in UAE:
It took an over for Devdutt Padikkal to set in but once he did, there was absolutely no stopping him. Facing Sandeep Sharma, who has an amazing record against Bangalore, in the second over, he started off with a couple of boundaries in the first three balls to get the momentum going. And as he settled in, the plan looked evident; let Aaron Finch go slow and allow the 20-year-old to go big.
After a difficult over from Sharma, David Warner brought Thangarasu Natarajan into the attack, but little did he know that the 29-year-old was going to get hit for 12 runs in his over. By the end of the Powerplay, Bangalore posted 53/0 on board, which is now their best-ever return on the UAE soil. Their previous best was a return of 50/1 against Delhi in the second match of the 2014 edition.
| Bangalore's Powerplay score in U.A.E in Indian T20 League | ||
| Matches | Runs | Wicket |
| Match 3, Hyderabad vs Bangalore, 21 Sep 2020 | 53 | 0 |
| Match 2, Delhi vs. Bangalore, 17 Apr 2014 | 50 | 1 |
| Match 11, Bangalore vs. Kolkata, 24 Apr 2014 | 49 | 0 |
| Match 18, Punjab vs. Bangalore, 28 Apr 2014 | 44 | 4 |
| Match 5, Bangalore vs. Mumbai, 19 Apr 2014 | 30 | 3 |
| Match 14, Rajasthan vs. Bangalore, 26 Apr 2014 | 22 | 5 |
Padikkal went on to notch an outstanding maiden half-century in just 36 deliveries. He wouldn’t have reached the milestone though if Rashid Khan had judged the elevation of his sweep shot on the square leg right.
The 20-year-old’s return of 56 runs is now the ninth-highest score by any debutant in the Indian T20 League. And well, he is only the second Bangalore player to score a half-century on debut after Shreevats Goswami (52 off 42) in 2008 against Delhi.
Virat’s opening game voodoo
After a blistering start from Padikkal and Finch, the onus came on captain Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to carry on the momentum. And while the latter took little time to hit the ground running, the skipper was shown his way back to the pavilion by Natarajan after scoring just 14 off 13 balls without hitting a boundary or even a maximum.
Since the inception of the league, the Bangalore and India captain has scored a total of 249 runs in 12 innings at a measly average and strike rate of 22.63 and 113.18 respectively in their opening fixtures, with the highest being a 51-ball 75 against Hyderabad in 2016. In those 12 innings, the 31-year-old has scored just one half-century. In fact, in the opening three editions of the league, he managed a total of six runs. Here’s how his returns look like:
| Season | opposition | Runs | balls | SR |
| 2008 | v Kolkata | 1 | 5 | 20 |
| 2009 | v Rajasthan | 3 | 8 | 37.5 |
| 2010 | v Kolkata | 2 | 5 | 40 |
| 2011 | v Kolkata | 23 | 18 | 127.78 |
| 2012 | v Delhi | 8 | 8 | 100 |
| 2013 | v Mumbai | 24 | 14 | 171.43 |
| 2014 | v Delhi | 49* | 38 | 128.95 |
| 2015 | v Kolkata | 13 | 15 | 86.67 |
| 2016 | v Hyderabad | 75 | 51 | 147.06 |
| 2017 | v Hyderabad | - | - | - |
| 2018 | v Kolkata | 31 | 33 | 93.94 |
| 2019 | v Chennai | 6 | 12 | 50 |
| 2020 | v Hyderabad | 14 | 13 | 107.68 |
Chahal’s outstanding return
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was key to Bangalore’s revival late into the game. The leggie gave away a mere 18 runs in his fours overs and notched three important wickets of Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar and Jonny Bairstow. He, in fact, struck at an important moment when Pandey and Bairstow were on course of building a match-turning partnership. This was the third time that Chahal has got the better of Pandey in the Indian T20 League, with only Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Lasith Malinga and Harbhajan Singh (four each) ahead of him.
Meanwhile, it was Bairstow’s second appearance against Bangalore in the Indian T20 League, and it is safe to say he loves hitting Kohli’s men around the park, having scored a match-winning knock of 114 of 56 in last year’s edition. On that day, it was Chahal who finally got the better of him. And on Monday at the Dubai International Stadium, the England batsman scored yet another quick-fire half-century, but for the second time running, he was dismissed by Chahal.
Chahal’s return of 18/3 is the best bowling figure by a Bangalore bowler against Hyderabad. The leg-spinner overtook Washinton Sunder’s spell of 24/3 he posted in last year’s edition.
Feature image courtesy: Twitter / Indian T20 League
