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Kohli and Royal Challengers Bengaluru are finally IPL champions
Eighteen years spent in the belief that ee sala cup namde (this year the cup is ours), 17 of them ending in wretched disappointment for one of the IPL’s biggest and most passionate fan bases, three of them ending with defeat at the final hurdle.
Eighteen seasons in, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are finally IPL champions. Their victory in their fourth final came at the expense of another trophy-less team that had put together a heartwarming IPL 2025 campaign; it wasn’t to be for Punjab Kings (PBKS), but their time will surely come too.
It’s a sign of how far T20 has come that 190 beating 184 was a bowler-dominated game. PBKS did brilliantly to restrict RCB to 190 after sending them in, but RCB’s bowlers did even better, with Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal – who have all won IPL titles at other teams – bringing their experience and nous to play on an unusual Ahmedabad surface.
The margin of victory was narrow – six runs – and while it showed how closely matched these two teams have been over the season, it was also deceptive. Shashank Singh, who finished on an unbeaten 30-ball 61, hit Josh Hazelwood for 6, 4, 6, 6 to end the match and the season. But those hits came just a touch too late; PBKS went into the final over needing 29, and Hazlewood had started with a pair of dots that all but ended the contest mathematically.
At the end of it, all eyes were on one man, the man with 18 on his back. Like his innings in last year’s T20 World Cup final, Virat Kohli’s 43 in this game seemed at various points like it belonged to another era, too risk-averse, and likely to set his team a below-par total. But there were clues throughout his knock that this wasn’t the sort of pitch that Ahmedabad has rolled out routinely this season, where 196 had been the smallest first-innings total in eight games. He had struggled especially to generate power with his pull shot, with the PBKS seamers generating tennis-ball bounce when they bowled into the pitch.
A target of 191, for all that, seemed too small for a PBKS line-up that had gunned down 204 with an over to spare at the same ground two days previously. But this pitch was different, and it didn’t necessarily ease up through the second innings. Between them, two of PBKS’ brightest batting talents outdid Kohli’s struggles: where Kohli scored 43 off 35 balls, Prabhsimran Singh and Nehal Wadhera scored 41 off 40 between them.
Krunal has won three IPL titles with Mumbai Indians (MI), and was Player of the Match in one of them. That was for what he did with the bat.
This time, he came in to bat in the 18th over and holed out for 4 off 5. This time, he turned the match with the ball.
The final was on a knife edge when he came on. PBKS were 52 for 1 at the end of their powerplay; RCB had been 55 for 1 at the same stage.
Krunal’s first over contained most of the ingredients that made him so difficult to hit on this pitch, which had just enough natural variation of pace and turn to make him hard to line up. He bowled fast and into the pitch, either angling the ball into the right-handers’ leg stump and cramping them for room or firing it wide of off stump to offer a single to sweeper cover that they didn’t particularly want. Only three runs came off this over.
His next over brought in another dimension: the ability to spot the batter’s intentions and change his pace at the last moment. Seeing the struggling Prabhsimran charge at him, Krunal – whose usual pace hovers in the 98-101kph range – dangled an 80kph ball outside his eyeline. Wrenched out of shape, Prabhsimran skewed a catch to point.
Go back to November 19, 2023, Shreyas Iyer had been in red-hot form through that ODI World Cup, and had played the innings of India’s semi-final win. Then, in the final, he had fallen early, caught behind off a back-of-a-length delivery.
The same script played out all over again now, more or less. Where he had poked uncertainly at Pat Cummins two years ago, he top-edged an attempted slash through point, off Romario Shepherd. It was a massive inflection point in this game, leaving PBKS needing 112 off 62 balls.
They were still in with more than a shout, though, because of their batting depth, and because Josh Inglis was playing a blinder. On this pitch where the short or shortish ball wasn’t coming onto the bat at anything like a predictable pace or height, he was playing the pull like a man in a dream. He scored 33 off 10 pulls, against pace and spin, hitting one four and four sixes.
At 39, however, he looked to step out and launch Krunal over long-on, and didn’t quite find either the power or elevation to do so. At that point, with PBKS needing 93 off 47, it seemed all but over.
Shashank had started his season at the same ground, and hit five fours in a now iconic final over, leaving his captain, on 97, without the strike.
He ended it with another burst of brilliance, keeping PBKS hanging on by their fingernails even as the required rate kept climbing. He hit Hazlewood for two sixes in the 16th over, and kept the equation within the bounds of possibility: 55 off 24. Then, with the rest of PBKS’ batters and genuine allrounders back in the hut, he refused singles and kept the strike all through the 19th over, hitting Bhuvneshwar for a six and a four to bring it to 29 off the last six balls.
It wasn’t to be, but the explosion at the finish, when the match was done, showed how much closer PBKS could have come if things had gone just a little differently.
Through most of RCB’s innings, it felt difficult to pin down whether they were going a touch too slow on a flat pitch or laying a strong platform on a slow one. While Kohli did his thing at one end, his top-order colleagues kept falling just when they were looking threatening, with Phil Salt, Rajat Patidar and Liam Livingstone scoring 66 off 43 between them. All three fell to Kyle Jamieson, who used the slower legcutter to telling effect, either getting it to die on the batter from shorter lengths or dip disconcertingly when he went full.
Jamieson, Azmatullah Omarzai and Vijaykumar Vyshak all hammered away on a hard length, and RCB couldn’t quite find a way to attack that length until Jitesh Sharma walked in. His 24 off 10 balls was a crucial little cameo in the end, featuring a flat-batted six over cover when he exposed all his stumps to create room, and a scooped six over his head, hit while chest-on to the bowler, Jamieson.
Jitesh’s innings threatened to take RCB past 200, but their ambitions were nipped in the bud by Vyshak, who dismissed Jitesh while conceding just five runs in the 18th over, and Arshdeep Singh, who found the reverse-swing that allowed him to go full and attack the stumps in a three-wicket final over that cost PBKS just five runs.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 190 for 9 in 20 overs (Phil Salt 16, Virat Kohli 43, Mayank Agarwal 24, Rajat Patidar 26, Liam Livingstone 25, Jitesh Sharma 24, Romario Shepherd 17; Arshdeep Singh 3-40, Kyle Jamieson 3-48, Azmatullah Omarzai 1-35, Vijaykumar Vyshak 1-30, Yuzvendra Chahal 1-37) beat Punjab Kings 184 for 7 in 20 overs (Priyansh Arya 24, Prabhsimran Singh 26, Nehal Wadhera 15, Shashank Singh 61*, Josh Inglis 39; Krunal Pandya 2-17, Yash Dayal 1-18, Josh Hazelwood 1-54,Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2-38, Romairo Shepherd 1-30) by six runs
[Cricinfo]
The United States and Iran have pressed pause for a second day on what had been an escalating conflict.
Reports on Sunday said neither the US nor Iran had launched strikes for a second day in a row. The sudden period of calm after two weeks of nightly attacks on Iran by the US, and Iranian retaliation on US allies in the Gulf comes amid hopes of a return to diplomacy.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News on Sunday that President Donald Trump was “giving [the potential for] talks … a little bit of room”.
While noting that the president has said the US was “locked and loaded”, Waltz said negotiators have been engaged at every level over the past few weeks, and in particular, over the past few days.
US broadcaster CBS, quoting two regional sources, reported that the US decision to pause the bombing was made due to the arrival of an Omani delegation in Tehran.
The prospects for peace between Tehran and Washington remain hindered by lingering mistrust, however. Since the US and Israel began their war on Iran in late February, Iranian officials have been quick to note that they have been attacked by the US and Israel during periods of negotiation on several previous occasions.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told the Austrian broadcaster ORF on Sunday that mediators, including Qatar and Pakistan, are exchanging messages between Iran and the US. But he added that Iran’s past efforts at diplomacy have been “betrayed”.
The New York Times reported that Trump paused plans to escalate attacks due to concerns about draining the Pentagon’s diminishing stockpile of missile interceptors and other air defence munitions in the Middle East.
[Aljazeera]
An unbeaten 72 off 34 balls from Chamika Karunarathne and a three wicket haul by Sachindu Colambage helped Galle Gallants register their fourth win in the Lanka Premier League by defeating Dambulla Sixers by 44 runs and consolidate their spot as table leaders
Scores:
Galle Gallants 220/6 in 20 overs [Sam Harper 41, Nurul Hasan 29, Charith Asalanka 31, Sahan Arachchige 28, Chamika Karunarathne 72*; Dushmantha Chameera 5-55, Mohammad Wasim 1-60]
Dambulla Sixers 176/7 in 20 overs [Niroshan Dickwella 32, Sahibzada Farhan 11, Dinesh Chandimal 15, Gulbadin Naib 15, Marques Ackerman 23, Ramesh Mendis 39*, Maheesh Theekshana 16*; Akif Javed 1-40, Eshan Malinga 1-32, Mohammad Nawaz 1-06, Sachindu Colambage 3-17]
Half tons from Kamil Mishara [78 off 53] and Avishka Fernando [66 off 36] and three wicket hauls from Mohamed Shiraz [3/18] and Dunith Wellalage [3/21] helped Jaffna Kings crush Kandy Royals by 93 runs in the 13th match of the Lanka Premier League played at Dambulla on Sunday [26].
With this win Jaffna Kings rise to third spot with six points while Kandy Royals were pushed down to the bottom of the table.
Scores:
Jaffna Kings 199/4 in 20 overs [Kamil Mishara 78, Avishka Fernando 66, Towhid Hridoy 35*, Chamindu Wickrmasinghe 10; Shaheen Shah Afridi 3-27, Dushan Hemantha 1-20]
Kandy Royals 108/10 in 18.2 overs [Lahiru Udara 54, Shaheen Shah Afridi 22; Mohamed Shiraz 3-18, Shakib Al Hassen 1-18, Dunith Wellalage 3-21, Traveen Mathew 1-21, David Weise 1-05]
US and Iran hit pause on strikes for second day
Showers will occur in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and North-western provinces and in Galle, Matara, Kandy and Nuwara-Eliya districts
Chamika, Colambage help Galle Gallants consolidate top spot
BASL challenges NPP MP to repeat false claims outside Parliament
Judges’ retirement age row: Govt.-BASL powwow on the cards
Organised motorcycle theft gang apprehended
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
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