LSG beat RCB by 9 runs, but were much better value for the victory. LSG’s batters were better despite a constantly rain-disrupted first innings, and their bowlers were more efficient in the reduced 19-over second innings.
But, what happened beyond the headlines?
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✍️ Written by Raunak Thakur, who runs Dead Pitch’s Society. Follow him on X.
Mitch Marsh made a mockery of RCB’s decision to field first on the night, racing to 58 off 24 in the powerplay as LSG posted their best first wicket partnership of the season. Despite multiple rain breaks, the Aussie would end his night on a frantic 111 of 56 runs. But, as good as Marsh was, the RCB bowling unit were guilty of failing to adjust their tactics.
When the LSG opener is on song, you have to be accurate in your deliveries. Hard lengths with variations, or perfect wide yorkers. Err ever so slightly and you’ll be harshly punished. While he is good against every type of bowling, he’s struck at 184 against right arm pacers, 164 against legging and 134 against SLAs in the IPL since 2023. Those are the only types of bowlers RCB have at their disposal.
Tonight, Marsh dealt in boundaries. He scored 12 boundaries (5 v spin, 5 v pace, 3 v Romario Shepherd), making up a whopping 81.1% of his runs tonight. He struck at 197.22 against pace and 200 against spin, and he ruthlessly punished every single bowler.
Josh Hazlewood is the batter’s international compatriot, and knows Marsh. Three weeks ago, in the reverse fixture, the LSG opener could only score 4 off 8 against the RCB pacer. Tonight, he crossed that number on his second ball. An over-pitched, on-pace delivery was dispatched straight back down the ground for a maximum as Marsh chose to attack to the best powerplay bowling unit in the league.
It was a harbinger of his innings to come. He scored 27 of 16 against Hazlewood, 16 in a powerplay over against Rasikh Dar, & 11 off a Krunal Pandya over in the first phase. Krunal made a similar mistake to Hazlewood by placing it in the wrong spot to be hit over his head, but Rasikh’s punishment was more interesting.
Two pace on deliveries wide of off were dispatched for maximums at the start of the fifth over, but a tighter to the stumps slower ball beat Marsh. So Rasikh tried it again, and Marsh was waiting to cut it through point for a 4.
Marsh was ruthless against any kind of laziness on the part of the bowlers. The end of the powerplay didn’t provide any respite, as Marsh continued to plunder runs against Krunal & Suyash Sharma. At the end of the 9th over, when a 3–minute long downpour sent everyone to the pavilion, the LSG opener had scored 76 (32).
As Rajat Patidar admitted in his post-game interview, “Marsh was beautiful, the way he played. And especially in the powerplay, he kept us under pressure. I was confused about the bowlers, who should I bowl to Mitchell Marsh”.
But the rain-enforced break seemed to give RCB some ideas. From an ungodly 238 in the first 9 overs, they managed to slow Marsh to just 35 off 24 (SR: 146) from the 10th over onwards. 14 of those 24 runs came in just 3 balls from Shepherd’s sole over, as the West Indian failed to grasp or execute RCB’s new plan; change the pitch & the pace constantly, and use up your variations against Marsh just to keep him guessing.
The first post-rain over belonged to Krunal, who can fluctuate his speeds from 98 to 118 KPH despite being an SLA. The 10th brought LSG’s first wicket, and went for just 3 runs as Marsh faced just two balls. Marsh barely batted in the 11th, the 12th saw an accurate Hazlewood force six singles, and the 13th saw the Aussie on strike to face Krunal – who he had dominated until then.
Krunal’s first ball was too full, too slow, and too far down leg, and was dispatched for 6. The onslaught was ramping up. Then the RCB bowler dug into his bag of tricks; pace variations going up to 121.9 KPH (as a spinner), his patented bouncers, and even a couple of low-bounce sidewinders limited the LSG batter to just 3 more runs off the over.
Then came Shepherd who misunderstood the assignment and bowled a flurry of pace-on 130+KPH deliveries to Marsh. The Aussie duly dispatched 3 boundaries in 4 balls, with the lone dot represented by Shepherd’s sole variation of the day; a surprising off-cutter, bowled at just 114.7 KPH.
RCB got another respite, as the rain came down again following the West Indian’s expensive over. When the game resumed, Marsh could barely get anything away as RCB’s pacers kept changing up their deliveries to keep him guessing.
Before the first major rain break, Marsh scored 76 (32). In between the first and second – as RCB started figuring out a solution – he scored 31 (19). After the second major rain break, he scored just 4 (5) as RCB’s non-Shepherd pacers kept him on his toes. He didn’t score a single boundary after the final rain break, holing out tamely to a low full toss from Hazlewood.
Marsh’s century won the game for LSG tonight, and RCB’s pacers could only stop him with the aid of multiple major breaks to devise new strategies. It was a brilliant innings that was enough on the night, but might’ve been so much more on another night.
Data from Cricbuzz, Cricmetric & Crex.
✍️ Written by Tarun Pratap, who runs The Rank Turner. Follow him on X.
Prince Yadav has been a shining light for LSG all season, but his sparks have been hidden by the dullness of his team’s performances. Tonight, with the defending champions in town, the pacer put on a show that’s going to rightfully linger in the memory.
Yadav’s numbers this season speak for themselves. Before tonight, he was one of only three pacers to take 8+ wickets, while conceding fewer than 8 RPO. After tonight’s 33-3 outing, that economy rate has crept up to 8.08, while he’s found himself second in the Purple Cap race with 16 wickets.
Tonight, he got involved in the action immediately. A misfield in the first over was immediately rectified with an athletic diving catch to remove Jacob Bethell. He took the ball for the second over, and his second delivery swung in 1.47° to rip out Virat Kohli’s off-stump.
At this point, it’s worth understanding just how improbable it is for Kohli to lose his wicket to a right arm pacer. His shortest innings all season has been 13 balls; he lasted 2 balls tonight. He strikes at 167.5 against right arm pace in the IPL powerplay since 2023, and averages 80.6 runs. Since the 2017 IPL, he’s been bowled by pacers just twice when he’s scored less than 10 runs. Virat Kohli doesn’t lose his wicket to pace, he definitely doesn’t lose it in the powerplay, and he absolutely definitely doesn’t lose it by getting bowled.
Yadav pulled off this unlikely trifecta by getting a good length ball to move back in drastically. It’s not a skill he had last year, when he picked up just 3 wickets in 6 innings for LSG as an IPL rookie.
In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, his Delhi coach Sarandeep Singh pointed out that Yadav was given opening duties for his domestic side. It wasn’t a role he was familiar with as a yorker specialist, but Singh focussed on getting Yadav to widen his repertoire. He focussed on targetting edges to slip, he bowled with India legend Ishant Sharma, and he learnt how to use the new ball with enough variations to make him a powerplay threat.
Yadav has made an impact beyond the powerplay though, as he’s also picked up 8 middle overs wickets at an average of 11.38 and an economy of just 6.5. While other bowlers like GT’s Prasidh Krishna and SRH’s Eshan Malinga have taken more wickets in the phase, both have economy rates above 9.2 RPO.
He replicated that form again tonight, just as RCB were looking like they could salvage this game via the Devdutt Padikkal-Rajat Patidar partnership. Yadav came back in the 11, picked up 2 wickets, and all but extinguished the defending champions’ hopes. Both wickets were smart; against Padikkal, he played on the batter’s desire to get his hard-hitting partner on strike and picked up a leading edge caught & bowled. Against the out-of-form Jitesh Sharma, he bowled one of his only two shorter balls all evening right after a fuller ball. The under pressure RCB keeper couldn’t resist the pull, but could only top edge it to the LSG keeper.
In 2019, Yadav was given a two-season BCCI ban for fudging his age. He’s sat out the ban, came back stronger, and is working his way up the ladder. First the Delhi Premier League, then the domestic Delhi sides – where he took 26 white ball wickets across formats – and now the IPL. It won’t be long before he gets another, more positive call from the BCCI.
Data from Cricmetric & ESPNcricinfo.
✍️ Written by Tarutr Malhotra, who runs Best of Cricket.
Tonight’s game was much closer than it had any right to be, and that’s down to one man; Tim David. His sumptuous 40 (17) kept RCB in the hunt after they had been reduced to 112/5 in 11.3 overs. The Aussie finisher was asked to come in earlier than is ideal for him, but he delivered in a manner that RCB’s finishers have struggled to do so this season.
RCB have averaged 8 wickets lost in their losses this season compared to 3.7 wickets lost in the games they’ve won. The problem is simple; when they lose early wickets, their finishers struggle to both score fast and face enough balls to see out the innings. Jitesh is the worst offender this season – averaging just 8 runs a game at a 108 SR – but David, Shepherd, & Krunal have all played a part in RCB’s collapses.
Tonight, the Aussie No. 6 reversed that trend. With RCB needing 107 runs from 49 balls when David walked in – and losing captain Patidar 4 balls later – the game looked over. His destructive innings gave RCB life by both accelerating their abysmal RPO, and giving Krunal time to settle. He scored just 9 (10) when partnered with David, but took on the mantle of responsibility after the Aussie’s wicket by scoring 19 (6) in RCB’s final partnership of the night.
Which is where the defending champions’ optimism comes to an end for two reasons. One, this is the third highest fastest IPL innings David has ever played, with a minimum of 15 balls. As good as he is, asking him to score at 235 while facing this many balls is just not a consistently replicable phenomenon.
Second, RCB still have a Shepherd problem. He is supposed to be their alternate 6th bowler to finish out their extra overs, and he is supposed to be their death overs finisher who can bat at 200+ SR for 10 balls. He did neither tonight, and he’s been unable to do so all season long.
RCB have the single worst last-over economy rate amongst all teams in the league at 12.5 RPO. This is partially down to Shepherd fluffing his lines when he’s been needed to replace a suffering fifth bowler.
Against DC, RCB’s previous 6 overs had conceded just 3 boundaries and left a vulnerable side needing 15 in the last over. Shepherd conceded 18 in 5 balls, including 3 boundaries. Against MI, his scarcely believable 26-run final over was papered over by the fact that MI needed 45 from 6 to win. Tonight, he didn’t bowl the last over – RCB have learnt their lesson – but his “pressure-relieving” over ended up costing 16 vital runs.
With the bat, the West Indian is striking at 144 this season. Good for an opener, but terrible for a finisher that scored at 292 in 2025 and 271 in 2024. Tonight’s chase should’ve been right up his alley. With Pandya scoring 19 (6) in the final partnership, Shepherd needed to score 31 of 15 balls – or a SR just over 200 – to win the game. Instead, he scored 23 (15) – including just 7(5) in the last over.
This isn’t a Shepherd-bashing piece. He’s in a rut, and RCB aren’t putting him in a position to succeed with one-off overs to bowl and repeated demands to salvage top order collapses. The defending champions are still favourites to qualify for the knockouts – a win tonight would’ve taken them top of the table – but three losses in five games should prompt a round of changes.
The problems are obvious, and have been obvious all season. They don’t have enough bowlers, and they are rigidly trying to ride out the storm before Phil Salt returns to solidify their opening partnership. But, with easy games against MI and KKR in the next two outings, it may be time to experiment with their lineup and bowling tactics. Bring in Duffy, bring in Iyer, start just three overseas players, do something different.
RCB are brilliant, but predictable. Maybe the brilliance overcomes the predictability, but why should they have to overcome this self-imposed restriction? They’re good enough to incorporate some unpredictability, and make solving it their opponents’ problem instead.
Data from our new database.