Duffy, Kohli, Padikkal shine as RCB kickstart title defence in style

Devdutt Padikkal, who had replaced Jacob Duffy as the Impact Sub, took center stage as Royal Challengers Bengaluru kicked off their title defense with a rout of Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Duffy did his best Josh Hazlewood impression on his IPL debut. Duffy bowled with confidence, using the new ball and bowling four overs consecutively to finish with 4-0-22-3, including the wickets of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. After that, Duffy went to his dressing room to relax while Padikkal destroyed SRH's attack with a high-intent 61 off 26 balls. RCB defeated 202 with six wickets and 26 balls remaining as Virat Kohli did his thing and scored a fifty of his own. Duffy and Padikkal combined to end Ishan Kishan's IPL captaincy debut with an innings of 80 off 38 balls. In 2008, a certain Brendon McCullum from the south of New Zealand set the Chinnaswamy on fire on the first day of the IPL's inaugural season. On the day the IPL turned 19, another player from the south of New Zealand caused a stir at the Chinnaswamy. After sussing out the conditions early - the new ball wasn't swinging for long - Duffy kept hitting a hard length and kept attacking the stumps to discomfit SRH's heavy-hitters. All of Abhishek, Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy were out, failing to control their pull shots off that length. Duffy capitalized on the fact that some balls also stopped on batters during those initial exchanges. Many would have assumed that when Rajat Patidar said that "Jacob" was in RCB's bowl-first XI at the toss, he meant Jacob Bethell, who had scored a magnificent century against India in the T20 World Cup semi-final. Instead, it was Duffy who got the nod and made it a debut to remember. In response to Duffy's strikes, Kishan raced to a fifty off 27 balls. In the recent past, IPL captaincy has forced some India batters to dial down their aggression, but Kishan continued to bat with the freedom that was central to India winning the T20 World Cup earlier this month. When the ball was doing a bit early doors, he started with a classical cover-driven four off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the powerplay and then hit T20 mode when he lined up Abhinandan Singh, the other RCB debutant, for 30 off 13 balls. When RCB went to spin in the form of Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma, Kishan lined them up as well. It felt like RCB would need something special to stop Kishan and that something special came via a one-handed screamer from Phil Salt near the point boundary at the end of the 16th over. Aniket Verma then produced a knock that was just as electric as Kishan's. He faced 18 balls and sent seven of those disappearing to the boundary. Aniket wasn't just about power. When Bhuvneshwar floated a slower, shorter knuckle ball, Aniket held his shape for long enough and ramped it over the keeper. After clearing the fence four times, he holed out in the penultimate over of the innings while attempting his fifth six. Jaydev Unadkat struck in his first over when he removed Salt for eight, but Padikkal and Kohli then got together and turned the chase into a cakewalk. By the time their partnership ended at 101 off 45 balls, RCB's asking rate had dropped to eight. Padikkal, who was selected before RCB's new recruit Venkatesh Iyer, hit three fours and three sixes off his first 11 balls. He went on to score his fastest IPL fifty, which he hit with 21 balls. Kohli stated after the match that he had initially intended to attack SRH's bowlers, but after watching Padikkal middle almost everything, he decided to anchor the chase instead. Kohli reached his own fifty off 33 balls before rushing RCB home with a sequence of 6,4,4,4 off Harshal Patel in 15.4 overs, the quickest any team has achieved a target of more than 200 runs. With economy rates ranging from 9.5 to 17.5, RCB left SRH's six-man attack. No Hazlewood? No problem for RCB. No Cummins? For SRH, there are already a lot of issues.