Virat Kohli admitted that “160 was going to be a good score” on what he assessed the Delhi track to be slowish in nature, but Royal Challengers Bangalore raced away to 181 for four against Delhi Capitals on Saturday. Captain Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli got the visitors off to a promising start as usual before Mitchell Marsh ended the partnership and then sent back his compatriot Glenn Maxwell for a golden duck. But RCB’s competitive total was down to Mahipal Lomror’s rapid half-century knock, which stood in stark contrast to Kohli’s fifty as the pair rebuild the innings. And eventually it was the 29-ball 54, with 3 sixes and 6 fours, that took RCB to 181 for four. But probably Delhi could have gotten a few runs off the scoreboard from RCB as Dinesh Karthik escaped a rare ‘obstructing the field’ dismissal.
It happened in the 19th over of the innings when Mukesh Kumar bowled a perfect yorker to Lomror. The batter could only dig it out, as the ball slowly rolled towards the bowler. An over eager Karthik meanwhile had made his way well past the half way line for a single despite Lomror not calling for it. It was much later when the latter had signalled for no single that Karthik realised and immediately turned to sprint his way back.
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Mukesh by then had collected the ball and erred in making a direct hit as Karthik ran in a straight line, right in front of the stumps, blocking the view of the bowler.
Warner, who had stationed himself at long on, was left fuming at Karthik as he engaged in an animated talk where the RCB batter was seen convincing that it wasn’t what he felt. But Delhi did not eventually appeal for ‘obstructing the field’ dismissal against Karthik and the DC skipper was later seen hurling a mouthful at Karthik.
A few deliveries later, Karthik was dismissed by Khaleel Ahmed in his attempt to clear the long-off boundary and the man to stop his effort was Warner. He went back scoring 11 off 9.
“160 was going to be a good score, Lomror came in and changed the game, he shifted the game (momentum) towards us. I was targeting the last three overs, but I think Dinesh and Anuj did a good job. The younger guys playing like this, gives me, Faf and Maxi a lot of confidence. It’s a great sign for the team, it was an amazing knock by him tonight,” Kohli said at innings end when asked about RCB’s total in the match against DC.