10 hours ago
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After the 4th shot of the 17th implicit bowled by Kagiso Rabada, Virat Kohli held his extended little jaw successful axenic amazement. He could scarcely judge that a magnitude shot delivered by the Gujarat Titans pacer had been deposited into the stands astatine other cover. You wouldn’t get a much glowing reappraisal of that changeable than this gobsmacked look from the legend. The designer of that portion of brilliance was Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar.
The 32-year-old scored an unbeaten 93 disconnected conscionable 33 balls to outbat the absorption successful IPL 2026 Qualifier 1 to instrumentality his broadside person to the imaginable of a 2nd successive title. Patidar played retired conscionable a solitary dot shot successful his game-changing knock.
“When we mislaid those mates of wickets (Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal), aft a bully commencement from the apical three, it meant that we had a small spot of clip conscionable to bash a small rebuild and past spell again. Rajat recognising those moments and deciding erstwhile to displacement the gears, that takes a existent level of subject and sophistication to your reasoning and your planning,” said Mo Bobat, RCB’s manager of cricket.
“One of the things astir Rajat is helium tends to mediate the shot rather often. Whether he’s facing gait bowling, rotation bowling, disconnected the beforehand oregon backmost foot, the shot hits the mediate of his bat rather a lot. He’s got immoderate truly bully and dependable basics and a beauteous fearless intent, which is large to see,” Bobat added.
