NEW DELHI: The eccentricity of the IPL never ceases to amaze the viewer. A venue that witnessed a massacre of wild swinging bats two days ago where 265 was comfortably chased down saw the swinging new white ball destroy the batting line-up on Monday night. In four overs, Royal Challengers Bengaluru seamers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood from the Delhi Capitals dugout turned the scene, with six batsmen sitting buried in their seats with wounded confidence and 8/6 on the scoreboard. Rub your eyes and read again.The Capitals went at a near-a-run-a-wicket rate before finishing the Powerplay at 13/6. Let’s call it worst batting performance in Powerplay or best spell of fast bowling in Powerplay. Those six overs served as a devout reminder of how cricket can be the great equalizer. RCB’s 76-run chase in just 6.3 overs with one wicket was also a commentary on the superior skills of Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood and the below average batting acumen of the Capitals batsmen. A crowd of Delhi partisans turned up to watch Virat Kohli bat and when he finished the game, they went home chanting his name and bossily smacked T Natarajan over the mid-wicket boundary. But the night will be remembered as Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood made a telling statement with figures of 3/5 and 4/12 respectively. Here were two seasoned and proud international bowlers, standing at the top of their games like bloodhounds on the same pitch that had reduced the bowlers to mere pins on Saturday afternoon. Every time they ran in, he felt like the battle was personal. Every dismissal was celebrated as if it was the answer to all the helpless days bowlers in the IPL are having thanks to the benign surfaces, bigger bats, short boundaries and the Impact Player rule. The pitch didn’t produce the pace and bounce of the WACA in Perth, and the conditions didn’t offer the exaggerated movement of the England track at the start of the summer. All Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood needed was a hint of swing in the air and comparatively more bounce off the pitch to expose the technical shortcomings of a batting line-up that thrived mostly on flatter decks. A lot has been said about this IPL hitting the display. A whiff of help from the conditions and the RCB duo started rolling in from the moment KL Rahul opted to expose debutant Sahil Parakha to take the first ball of the match against Bhuvneshwar. The Capitals batters fluttered around the middle like frightened chickens, having no idea what the ball was doing. The RCB fielders converged on one-way batting from a heavily manned slip cordon, a rarity in T20 cricket, to keep them balanced on the mat. A dust storm swept through the Arun Jaitley Stadium after the ninth over, but the home team had already been carried away by the menacing skills of Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood with the new ball. It was a gut-wrenching moment when the designated opener in Abhishek Porel walked in as an impact player in the third over of the match tasked with playing the new ball. He struggled for 30 off 33 balls before being bowled by Hazlewood in the 17th over with Delhi still only 75.Short Score:DC: 75 all out in 16.3 overs (Abishek Porel 30; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3/5, Josh Hazlewood 4/12).RCB: 77 for 1 in 6.3 overs (Devdutt Padikkal 34; Kyle Jamieson 1/42).
