The Royal Challengers Bengaluru held their nerve in an immensely tense-finish Tata IPL match to beat the Mumbai Indians by two wickets on the final ball at the Nava Raipur International Cricket Stadium on Sunday evening, thanks to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rasikh Dar's partnership of 10 match-defining runs in three balls.
RCB's crucial win took them to 14 points on the log - equal with the table-topping Sunrisers Hyderabad and Gujarat Titans, while the loss eliminated both Mumbai and Lucknow Super Giants, who lost to the Chennai Super Kings earlier in the day to both remain on six points from 11 matches.
The remarkable final over that spanned a total of 10 balls was bowled by rookie Raj Angad Bawa, who came into the attack to attempt to defend 15 runs but was undone by Bhuvneshwar Kumar's six off the fourth legal ball, before Dar's push for two runs in the sixth and final ball helped RCB get over the line and achieve the 167-run target. Allrounder Krunal Pandya stood out with the bat for RCB, thumping 73 from 46 balls (4x4, 5x6) before eventually departing in the 18th over with the damage already done in the entertaining run chase.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar started and finished the job for RCB after earlier taking four wickets for just 23 runs helped RCB restrict Mumbai to 166-7, while South African Corbin Bosch's excellent figures of 4-1-26-4 were ultimately not enough to help his side register a much-needed win that would have kept them in this year's competition.
RCB's fast bowling unit had earlier restricted Mumbai to 166-7, sharing the wicket-taking duties with Kumar assuming the leading role with his four scalps taken while conceding just 23 runs in four overs. Rasikh Dar's contribution, despite his going down as the joint-most expensive RCB bowler having gone for 42 runs, was more meaningful than the numbers suggested, as he broke Mumbai's crucial 82-run partnership between Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma before conceding just five runs in the final over of the innings in which there was a dot ball and no boundary.
Josh Hazlewood and Romario Shepherd - who bowled with impressive accuracy to finish with figures of 1-18 in three overs - took the other two wickets.
Kumar single-handedly ran the show in the powerplay in which Mumbai finished on 53-3, accounting for all three wickets of Ryan Rickelton (2), Rohit Sharma (22) and stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav (0) in his first two overs. Rickelton's lofted drive went straight to the fielder at mid off in the final ball of the first over, before Sharma - who started brightly with two fours and two sixes - and Yadav departed in two balls in the third over. The Indian paceman returned to the attack at the death and continued where he had left off, bowling Varma who saw his attempt at a reverse scoop direct the ball onto the stumps.
Varma departed for 57 off 42 balls that included three fours and two maximums, making the most of being dropped in the powerplay when he was on 11. His score was the highest in the first innings, while Dhir, who was with him in the middle for nine and a half overs during the said 82-run stand, chipped in with 47 from 32 (5x4, 2x6).
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU: Rajat Patidar (captain), Virat Kohli, Jacob Bethell, Jitesh Sharma (wkt), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Dar.
IMPACT OPTIONS: Devdutt Padikkal, Jordan Cox, Mangesh Yadav, Swapnil Singh, Venkatesh Iyer.
MUMBAI INDIANS: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton (wkt), Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Will Jacks, Raj Angad Bawa, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, AM Ghazanfar.
IMPACT OPTIONS: Raghu Sharma, Mayank Rawat, Robin Minz, Shardul Thakur, Trent Boult.