When even the great Virat Kohli salutes him as the player who’s making all the difference for his beloved Royal Challengers Bengaluru, then Josh Hazlewood can be assured he must be doing something right.
On Sunday, another two scalps for the evergreen Australian quick ensured Hazlewood donned the purple cap as the IPL’s leading wicket-taker of the season while they also helped propel RCB to a six-wicket win over Delhi Capitals that hoists them to the top of the table.
RCB have never won the men’s league and it’s something that evidently pains their greatest player Kohli a good deal.
But now it seems the master batter, who himself put on the orange cap on Sunday as the league’s leading 2025 run-scorer after compiling yet another half-century, fancies he’s found the key ally to help RCB achieve their dream.
“We all know the world-class bowler Josh has been,” enthused Kohli back in his home city at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium after watching Hazlewood take his tally for the campaign to 18 scalps at 17.27 apiece.
“You know, the difference for us this year is he’s been absolutely world-class. There’s a reason why he has the purple cap on his head.”
Hazlewood (2-36) struck to get shot of the dangerous Abishek Porel (28 off 11 balls) at the top of the order before then uprooting Delhi captain Axar Patel’s middle stump mid-innings to help keep the home side down to a middling 8-162.
Kohli, whose 51 off 47 balls took him to 443 runs for the season, and the exceptional Krunal Pandya (73 off 47) then broke the back of the chase as RCB eased home with nine balls to spare.
Their only slight moment of concern was when Kohli fell, caught expertly on the long-off boundary by Mitch Starc off the bowling of Dushmantha Chameera, leaving RCB still needing 18 to win off 13 balls.
Enter Tim David, the powerful Aussie finisher who’s done such a good job for them this season, clouting 184 runs in just seven knocks, at an average of 92 and a strike-rate of 197.84.
Once again, he made light work of the job with heavy hitting, his 19no coming off just five balls, with the last four going for 6, 4, 4 and 4 off Mukesh Kumar to ensure the match didn’t enter knee-knocking, final-over territory.
“We have the extra power in Tim David,” enthused Kohli. “That firepower at the back end of the innings definitely helps you.”
It wasn’t the greatest of days for Starc, though, who got belted for three boundaries by Kohli, ending up with 0-31 off his three overs.
Mitch Marsh has Tim David-type power in abundance but Australia’s T20 captain couldn’t quite display it for long enough in Sunday’s other IPL match as his Lucknow Super Giants fell to a 54-run defeat at Mumbai Indians’ Wankhede Stadium home.
Suryakumar Yadav (54 off 28) and Ryan Rickelton (58 off 32) had hit half-centuries as Mumbai amassed 7-215 and Marsh was impressive at the start of the chase, cracking 34 off 24, including one enormous six off the formidable Jasprit Bumrah.
But once he’d holed out to his excellent old Kiwi rival Trent Boult (3-20), the game was soon up for the Justin Langer-coached Lucknow, who collapsed to 161 all out, with Bumrah (4-22), as per usual, the chief destroyer.
Content Source: www.perthnow.com.au