Victoria make it look easy

The enduring image of the day was that of Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli on the crease together for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Champions League Super 8 game against Victoria....

The enduring image of the day was that of Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli on the crease together for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Champions League Super 8 game against Victoria. Earlier in the day,Kohli had replaced Dravid in the ODI squad for the home against Australia but here they were joining forces against a state team from Down Under.

The irony was hard to miss as Dravid outscored Kohli,and his innings of 33 helped the Royal Challengers set a respectable target of 128. His knock had four hits to the fence and one over it.

But in the context of the game,Dravids success or Kolhis failure didnt matter as Victoria recorded a seven-wickets win over the Royal Challengers.

Significant contributions

There was no standalone performer for the winners in the batting department,but there were small,significant contributions. Rob Quiney,Brad Hodge and Aiden Blizzard were out in their 20s but they ensured that Victoria didnt lose wickets in heap. Once they were out,old hands David Hussey and Cameron White came together to knocked over the winning runs with 25 balls to spare.

Earlier in the day,all-rounder Andrew McDonald had made things easy for the batsmen. Coming as the last-change bowler after national team stars Peter Siddle and Jon Holland went wicket-less,he finished with figures of 4-0-21-4.

The Bangalore side missed the all-round capabilities of Jacques Kallis,who was ruled out of the game due to injury. It was always going to be a big challenge for the Royal Challengers to fill Kalliss shoes,considering his fine show with both the bat and ball in the last game against Otago. His innings of 73 as opener and his figures of 3/18 with the new ball had given the team a perfect start on either side of the break in that game.

Replacement opener Manish Pandeys 39 made him the top scorer but still his team didnt have the kind of start that they would have liked. His 28-ball knock had seven boundaries,but he couldnt quite anchor the inning like Kallis.

Surprise move

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While bowling,skipper Anil Kumble opened the attack in a surprise move. He was restrictive in the first few overs but he failed to get a breakthrough.

And considering that Victoria were chasing a modest score,this proved to be the teams folly. Kumbles new-ball bowling partner Praveen Kumar bowled well but he too couldnt get wickets.

Kumbles trump card Dale Steyn too was more erratic than effective. All in all,it was a forgettable outing for the Bangalore side.

A weak batting display followed by undisciplined bowling and sloppy fielding resulted in a huge loss. In the end,Dravid was not the only man in the team who would like to wipe out the memories of the day.