Triphathi Carries Bat, Royals: It wouldn't become obvious until later in the match how crucial Rahul Tripathi's unbeaten 80 off 58 balls would be, with a slow pitch and pressure of a finals berth making runs difficult to come by. However the Rajasthan opener showed no signs of nerves as he anchored the Rajasthan innings, starting watchfully in the first two overs before sending Moeen Ali over the fence in the third and triggering a steady flow of boundaries thereafter. His unbeaten vigil at the crease prevented Rajasthan's innings from stalling as they clawed their way to a defendable 164-run target, with the runs on the board proving doubly valuable in the second innings as the RCB batsmen struggled to get going on the sluggish deck.
Spin to win: Defending a modest target on a sluggish pitch, the spinners were always likely to be a factor at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, and luckily for the home side their tweakers were up to the task. Krishnappa Gowtham provided the first crucial breakthrough when Virat Kohli failed to pick the wrong'un for the second match in a row and had his stumps rearranged as a result, before Shreyas Gopal took over. The 24-year-old leg-spinner almost doubled his tournament wicket tally as he turned the main destroyer with figures of 4-16 in a spell that decimated the RCB middle-order, including the crucial wicket of AB de Villiers for 53 when he too played around a googly and had Klaasen whip off the bails to send him on his way. An attempted Colin de Grandhomme drive that flew to first slip off the bowling of Ish Sodhi was the final key wicket to be claimed by the tweakers, before the the seamers in Laughlin and Unadkat cleaned up the tail in the final few overs.
Image Id: 964B763C8FA34350BBF0129A35E330BD Image Caption: Shreyas Gopal took figures of 4-16 // BCCI
The Nail in the Coffin: If it were a boxing bout, RCB were on the ropes by the time Ben Laughlin took the ball in the sixteenth over; Shreyas Gopal having decimated their middle-order to have them swaying with 46 runs needed from 30 balls and four wickets in hand. However it was the veteran Aussie seamer who delivered the knockout blow, first dismissing Sarfraz Khan thanks to some stellar work behind the stumps from Heinrich Klaasen, before cleaning up the stumps of Umesh Yadav the next ball to all but kill off any chance of an RCB resurgence.
The Scenario: A crucial win for Rajasthan, who keep their playoff hopes alive and will now rely on Delhi upsetting Mumbai in their final regular season match of the year to hold their place in the top four. However they also have the Kings XI to contend with, who could leapfrog them into a finals position if they manage to beat Chennai by a sufficient margin to pass the Royals on net run rate. Meanwhile it's all over for the star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore, who miss the finals for the eighth time in their 11-year history after finishing with six wins and eight losses.
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