Kolkata: Ardent cricket lovers do not have much of a liking towards the rains. Particularly, after today’s IPL game between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad, which was washed out, without the toss being held, would only increase dejection.
The game was a much-needed one for both the teams as both these teams-who featured in last year’s final of the tournament, faced contrasting losses in their earlier games. While Sunrisers were undone by a defiant Mahendra Singh Dhoni innings, Bangalore was humiliated by the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens where they were shot out for a paltry 49 runs chasing 131.
The match which was scheduled to be held at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, which is the Virat Kohli led Bangalore’s home ground. Earlier, these two teams had locked horns in the first match of this year’s tournament where Yuvraj Singh played a belligerent innings of 62 runs off just 27 deliveries and took apart the Bangalore bowling.
Having posted a total of 207/4, the Bangalore side sans Virat Kohli led by stand-in captain Shane Watson struggled to chase down the total as none of their batsmen went on to play a big innings. At the end of the day, it was the Sunrisers who had again got the better of Bangalore after they beat them at their home ground last year to clinch their maiden IPL trophy.
This even made the contest more interesting and gave it a hype, courtesy the fact that this was the exact place where the Sunrisers had written history, and quite truly, there could have been no place better for the RCB to exact revenge as well make a comeback into the tournament after their embarrassing defeat in Kolkata.
But just when the stage was set for some fireworks, the rains came to spoil the party and as it turned out to be, both these teams shared a point each with impacts the IPL points table.
Sunrisers Hyderabad with this one point, are now at the third position, with nine points to their name from eight games.
Bangalore however are now at the sixth place, with five points from a similar number of games.
This one point starts to play it’s part when there are teams locked on an even number of points are vying for a top two spot. This one point thus gives them the edge over these teams. But it could turn out to be the opposite as a team having that one point might fall short of one more and may not qualify for the playoffs.
Only time would tell whether it’s the Royal Challengers Bangalore or the Sunrisers Hyderabad who would use this one point to their advantage. As of now, cricket lovers can only sit and hope that no more matches in the tenth of the tournament gets washed out.