IPL 2015: Rain-hit Bangalore make the grade

BENGALURU: Virat Kohli has an alternate career as soothsayer to consider post his retirement! On Friday, after the sensational win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, the Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper had stated that his team had wrenched its most important two points of the last three years. Nobody at that time could have guessed how prophetic Kohli's words would turn out to be.
Scorecard
On Sunday, in front of a capacity crowd at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, heavy rains ruined any chance of RCB aggressively going after Delhi Daredevils' competitive total of 187 for 5 from 20 overs. RCB were 2/0 in 1.1 overs when the skies opened up at around 6 pm and did not let up, forcing the umpires to officially call off the match at 7.35 pm.
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The teams shared two points with RCB taking their tally of points to 16 from their complement of 14 league matches. The two points that they grabbed from SRH certainly came in most handy as Kohli had foreseen, virtually making sure they made the playoffs. Meanwhile, Delhi finished seventh on the table with a mere 11 points.
RCB needed to await the result of the last match of the league, between Mumbai Indians and SRH, to find out whether they finish second or third on the table. Unless rains interfere with the completion of that game, RCB, in all probability, are headed to Pune for the playoff eliminator to be played on Wednesday.
The end was a pity today. A packed stadium, which had turned out in green in line with RCB's 'GoGreen' initiative, was rooting for the home side all along. But Delhi, who were asked to bat first, played with great aplomb at the top of the order. The left-handed Quinton De Kock (69; 39b, 9x4, 3x6) was in his best form of the tournament and pieced together useful partnerships, of 55 for the first wicket with Shreyas Iyer and 55 for the second with skipper JP Duminy (67 n.o., 43b, 4x4, 3x6) to guide the team to an extremely healthy score.