Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) faced each other in the third game of IPL 2020 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Monday (September 21).

Asked to bat first, RCB posted 163/5 in 20 overs on the back of debutant Devdutt Padikkal’s 42-ball 56 and AB de Villiers’ dazzling 30-ball 51.

For SRH, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0-25) and Rashid Khan (0-31) were economical with the ball in their stipulated four overs while T Natarajan, Abhishek Sharma and Vijay Shankar chipped in with wicket apiece.

In reply, Sunrisers lost skipper David Warner (6) cheaply but the duo of Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey added 71 runs for the second wicket to put the innings back on track.

Just when SRH were cruising in the chase, RCB leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal dismissed Pandey (34 off 33 balls), Bairstow (61 off 43 balls) and Vijay Shankar (0) in quick succession which induced a collapse.

Shivam Dube removed Priyam Garg (12), Abhishek (7) got run out while Navdeep Saini sent Rashid (6) and Bhuvneshwar (0) packing as SRH slipped from 121/4 to 142/8. Dube and Dale Steyn got the final two wickets as SRH eventually got bowled out for 153 in 19.4 overs.

Cricket experts on Twitter were impressed with RCB’s performance in their very first game of this season.

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