Rajat Patidar Stars With Ton As Royal Challengers Bangalore Defeat Lucknow Super Giants In Eliminator

Little-known domestic bulwark Rajat Patidar literally owned the biggest stage of his nascent career with a magnificent hundred that got Royal Challengers Bangalore within a sniffing distance of title clash after out-batting Lucknow Super Giants by 14 runs in the IPL Eliminator on Wednesday. RCB will meet Rajasthan Royals in the second Qualifier on Friday, which will decide Gujarat Titans' opposition for Sunday's final Courtesy Patidar's 54-ball-112 not out which had 12 fours and seven huge sixes, RCB literally knocked the stuffing out of LSG attack, piling an imposing 207 for 4 in 20 overs. For LSG, the only saving grace was Mohsin Khan's superb figures of 1 for 25.

In reply, KL Rahul's 78 off 59 balls didn't make much of an impact save beefing his individual run-tally as LSG finished on 193 for 6 after 20 overs.

If Patidar's hundred set it up nicely for RCB, no words of praise will be enough for the brilliant Harshal Patel (4-0-25-1), whose 18th over full of wide yorkers and off-cutter variations decisively tilted the match in his team's favour.

Once Josh Hazlewood removed Rahul in the 19th over, RCB team in spirit had already boarded the flight to Ahmedabad.

While Rahul helped himself to three fours and five sixes but his 96-run stand with Deepak Hooda (45) did keep LSG in the fight a total of six boundaries compared to 14 sixes told a different story.

Especially when RCB hit 21 fours apart from the nine maximums they had in their innings.

There was a phase when Rahul's batting seemed a tad selfish and it felt as if he was happy as long as he got his 600 runs for the season.

On a day their famed batting duo trio of Faf du Plessis (0), Glenn Maxwell (9) and Virat Kohli (25) failed to enthrall a capacity Eden crowd,