IPL 2018: De Villiers Gets Congratulated After his Sensational All-Round Performance Against Hyderabad

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) kept their hopes of qualifying for the playoffs alive after winning the 51^st match of the tournament against Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs.

It was an exceptional display of batsmanship by the Bangalore batsmen which helped them amass a huge total of 219 on the board. It was always going to be a difficult chase. However, Hyderabad managed to get close to the target but eventually fell short by 14 runs.

Early in the day, it was sensational knocks from AB de Villiers and Moeen Ali which was instrumental in helping Bangalore post a mammoth 218 on the board in their allotted 20 overs.

De Villiers was at his imperious best and scored 69 off 39 deliveries. Moeen Ali also looked in great touch and scored 65 off 34 balls which included a couple of fours and six sixes.

However, Rashid Khan dismissed both the batsmen in the same over to peg them back. But Colin de Granhomme and Sarfaraz Khan played a couple of cameos which eventually propelled Bangalore to a score of over 200 overs.

Grandhomme scored 40 off just 17 deliveries which studded with four and four sixes. On the other hand, Sarfaraz batted for only eight balls but smashed three fours and a six during his knock of 22.

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Hyderabad always needed to get off to a sensational start to have hopes of chasing the total down.

Openers Shikhar Dhawan and Alex Hales got them off to a pretty steady start. Both batsmen played some gorgeous shots to begin with before Yuzvendra Chahal brought about Dhawan’s downfall after a good partnership of 47 runs.

The sensational catch from de Villiers

However, the biggest moment in the match came on the final delivery of the 8^th over. Moeen Ali bowled a well-flighted delivery and Alex Hales came dancing down the track and bottom hand swatted the delivery over the deep mid wicket region.

It looked a clear six until the Superman ABD arrived from nowhere and plucked on to the catch out of thin air. The effort was simply superhuman to say the least. He gave a 3.5 feet leap and landed very close to the boundary ropes.

He managed to maintain his balance at the age of 34 and was seen celebrating like a teenager. Virat Kohli was also quite shocked and told that in the presentation ceremony.

“That was Spiderman stuff (about ABD’s catch). You don’t do that as normal human beings. I thought it was going for a six but he pulled it off. I thought it was going for a six, but he pulls it out, then the jump and then the balance. He can do freakish things but I am used to it now. His shots still leave me in awe but his fielding I am pretty used to now,” Virat said.

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De Villiers gives away his best catch award to a fan

The Royal Challengers Bangalore official twitter handle congratulated ABD on a brilliant all-round performance and for handing away his catch award to one of the RCB fans.

”Athletic, talented, charming. Add benevolent to the list to describe @ABdeVilliers17 Truly Superhuman,” the official website of RCB wrote.

In a video shared by the RCB website, ABD was seen giving away his best catch award to one of the RCB spectators.

The fan was overjoyed. Who would not like to bag the best catch award of a certain Abraham Benjamin De Villiers?

Athletic, talented, charming. Add benevolent to the list to describe @ABdeVilliers17 ❤ Truly Superhuman ?#PlayBold #RCBvSRH #RCB pic.twitter.com/LblMlypLLR

— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) May 17, 2018