Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers Bangalore, SunRisers Hyderabad
RCB. [Image-IPLT20]

The Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore pulled off a win from the dead against SunRisers Hyderabad on Wednesday to notch up their second successive win of the season.

Defending 149, RCB looked dead and buried when SRH skipper David Warner was going great guns.

SRH were cruising along at 1/96 in the 14th over when Kyle Jamieson dismissed David Warner to claw the Virat Kohli-led RCB back in the game.

Virat Kohli, RCB
Shahbaz Ahmed [Image-IPLT20]
But with Jonny Bairstow still left, the game was far from over and it is at this point, Virat Kohli made an instinctive tactical punt by bowling Shahbaz Ahmed the 17th over.

It was a pure instinctive ploy by Virat, something head coach Simon Katich and pacer Mohammed Siraj revealed after the game.

During the strategic time out, Virat Kohli told us his gut feeling is to bowl Shahbaz again – we agreed to it. He deserves a lot of credit as skipper for taking and going with instincts”, Simon Katich said as per the RCB website.

Pitch was slow and gripping for spinners so Virat Bhai told left-arm spinner Shahbaz to bowl then changed the match completely by taking three wickets in a single over,” Mohammed Siraj said in the press conference.

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The move turned out to be a masterstroke as Shahbaz Ahmed pulled the game completely in RCB’s favor by getting rid of Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, and Abdul Samad in one over.

The triple wicket blow was something SRH could never recover from and while Rashid Khan did his best in the last two overs, the Orange Army still fell short by 6 runs to hand Virat’s team their second successive win of the season.

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