The Gujarat Lions revealed the chinks in the armoury of the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday.
Once Virat Kohli was out early, Bangalore was almost caught hopeless which was bizarre because it was a simple chase of 150 odd and the wicket was normal.
It was spinning yes, but, it always does in Bangalore and having played 7 games there, it was not as if the men in Red and Black had no knowledge of that.
But, they were so used to having their skipper bat from the first to the last ball that when they had to pursue the chase in his absence, they found it so unfamiliar and the panic was a result of that only.
And, with the middle order being run through by Gujarat in just 10 minutes or so, nothing other than a De Villiers’ effort could have got the hosts over the line.
The South African skipper, who is a Cricketing superman, operated with expertise though and with 79 runs, which were as valuable as gold in the situation, made sure the shocking looks of the thirty thousand capacity crowd turned into big grins.
But, that left Bangalore with a bit to think about ahead of the Sunday mega contest because they can’t be having such a middle order batting performance again that night.
Though Virat has been adamant at not playing Sarfaraz Khan for his poor fielding skills, he might be open to changing his opinion for one final game as the Mumbai born right hander is an excellent young finisher.
One of the other decisions might see Chris Gayle getting excluded to create space for the Aussie leftie Travis Bird who would be in the middle order if chosen with KL Rahul having to go up.