The IPL is about heroes. The world’s biggest domestic T20 competition sees stars fly in from around the world to be part of the occasion — big names, big talents, and as Chris Gayle crudely likes to imply (and Sunny Gavasker and Ravi Shastri joke about) — big bats too. And there are the home-grown heroes: None more celebrated, and deservedly so, than Virat Kohli. But we must never forget the unsung heroes, the nearly men, the also-rans who contribute solidly, but rarely grab the headlines.
Tuesday’s marvellous play-off match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Lions featured several of these — some performed, some didn’t — but that is a huge part of the excitement of the contest. Even though it was over with 10 balls and four wickets to spare, it was as fluctuating and thrilling a game as we have seen this season.
Reward was a place in Sunday’s final for the winner; the consolation prize for the loser an opportunity to try again on Friday. Both sides, of course, would have fielded upon winning the toss, but it was Virat Kohli’s good fortune to call correctly.
Kohli’s RCB have been in red-hot form in the second half of this season; before Tuesday’s game, they’d won six of their last seven matches, and four on the trot. At the forefront of this sequence has been the incredible batting of skipper Kohli, splendidly supported by the brilliant AB de Villiers; and with the still potentially devastating Chris Gayle at the top of the order — making up perhaps the most terrifying top-three seen in the Indian Premier League’s nine years.
Kohli and ABD had already wreaked havoc upon Suresh Raina’s Lions when he was absent on paternity leave for the birth of his daughter; and you could smell their fear that RCB might cause carnage again. It was an experience that had left them mentally scarred, and quite understandably so.
