Virat Kohli’s inspirational leadership for Royal Challengers Bangalore will be up against the brute force with which David Warner has steered Sunrisers Hyderabad when the two teams, eyeing their maiden IPL title, square off in a high-intensity summit clash at Bengaluru on Sunday.
RCB, however, will have a slight advantage over Sunrisers as they have the experience of playing in an IPL final twice in the past - 2009 and 2011, but on both occasions, they had finished runners-up.
Sunrisers’ best finish was a play-off berth which they managed in their debut season in 2013.
RCB witnessed a topsy-turvy campaign initially and were in a spot of bother at one stage. They needed to win their last four games to make it to the play-offs and the Bangalore outfit didn’t just achieve that but also won the first qualifier match against Gujarat to get a shot at the final for a third time.
RCB struck form just at the right time and and dished out five clinical performances to beat the Lions (by 144 runs), Kolkata Knight Riders (by 9 wickets), Kings XI Punjab (by 82 runs D/L method), Delhi Daredevils (by 6 wickets) and Gujarat (by 4 wickets) again in Qualifier 1 to seal their place in the title clash.
Kohli and AB de Villiers have been the cynosure of all eyes for RCB with their batsmanship.
Credit for RCB’s turnaround should also go to the team’s not-so-experienced bowling attack, which was under fire for major part of the tournament.
RCB’s turnaround in bowling was mainly possible due to the leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who is the second highest wicket-taker in the tournament with 20 scalps from 12 games.
Sunrisers will be coming into the final on the back of two high-profile wins, first against two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders by 22 runs in the Eliminator and then against the Lions in Qualifier 2.
Warner has been in explosive form for Sunrisers. He is leading by example and has so far amassed 779 runs from 16 games with eight fifties, next only to Kohli in the run-getters’ list in IPL 9. The match-winning 93 not out against Lions in the Qualifier 2 on Friday is Warner’s highest score.
The Lions were beaten by four wickets in the second qualifier.
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