Salt’s heavy metal, Kohli’s classic riffs

Phil Salt has never lost his sleep over hitting sixes. But he did lose hours wondering how he could bat deeper into an innings, how he could sustain the buccaneering ways after powerplay. So he hit a 3,500 kcal diet a day, bulked up, and then muscled up and transformed into an unabashed power hitter even after the first six overs.

He still ransacks most of his runs in the powerplay. But it is the assurance in his middle-over batting that has made him a feared opener in the franchise circuit. He rattles bowlers from the get-go, setting the tone and unburdening colleagues down the order. His county teammate Jofra Archer sliced him into half with his first ball, a devilish nip-backer, the inside-edge dribbling to the fence. Salt cracked a grin, shook his head, and then exacted revenge with a pugnaciously hooked six. It was all blood and thunder, as his knocks are. He survived a close lbw and pair of dropped catches, but brushed them off as anomalies.

The exchanges with Archer made for a riveting watch. The England seamer bowled with wind in his sails, ratcheting up unnerving pace and sometimes disturbing movement on a slow surface. His adversary, unflustered by pace and movement, eyeing every ball into the stand. Archer nearly owned the bragging rights but for the unusually greasy fingers of Shimron Hetmyer. The next ball, Salt sprinkled salt into the injury by scything the ball over deep mid-wicket.

Kohli gets to his 5⃣0⃣ in 𝗥𝗢𝗬𝗔𝗟 style! 👑

🎥 Watch Virat Kohli light up the chase with his classic fireworks! 🔥

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Those two balls formed a decisive part of the Sunday narrative. Salt, buoyed, unleashed an assault so remarkable that he made the audience forget Kohli. Maheesh Theekshana and Sandeep Sharma too felt the sting of his bat, which he swished like a sword. Sharma endured the pangs of another drop, off the final power-play ball, the total score at 65. The Sussex buccaneer smashed a four and two more sixes, before perishing for 65 (33 balls), the team eight runs shy off 100 runs.

From this spot of comfort, Kohli and Co. would not have faltered. The former captain took charge of the chase with a tune rendered in classical tunes. He nudged and tapped singles until the 13th over, before he shunted Kumar Kartikeya beyond the long-on fence. A wristy shot off Theekshana next ball moved him into the fifth gear.

Thereafter, the contest, its intensity sucked out, turned into an exhibition game, wherein Kohli regaled the crowd with delightful strokes. None as emphatic as the straight six off Wanindu Hasaranga that winked in his 100th T20 half-century. Shortly, with 15 balls in hand, RCB wrapped the win, laying to waste Jaiswal’s glorious 75.

Jaiswal’s symphony

Amidst the carnages and onslaughts that have become the fodder of the league, a 75 from 47 balls knock wouldn’t invoke awe, or inspire recall quotient. But the aforementioned numbers Jaiswal produced on a horrid afternoon, should not be viewed through the prism of number, but with a forensic attention to detail.

It was one of the surfaces that looked good just because Jaiswal made it look good. It was sluggish, the stray ball stuck on the surface and stopped at batsmen. Timing the ball was difficult, finding the squarer spaces of the arduous. Even such a glorious timer of the ball, Sanju Samson, resembled an out-of-touch jockey unable to gallop his pet hooves.

Yashasvi Jaiswal in action during RR vs RCB IPL 2025 match in Jaipur. (Sportzpics for IPL)

But Jaiswal is too multifaceted to be held hostage of the 22-yards. He processed its tacky traits and batted accordingly. He eschewed the cuts, pulls and slices behind the square. Instead, he largely targeted the straight areas of the field. His first three boundaries were hit in the semi-arc from long-on to long-off. The third, a sumptuous straight drive, had the freshness of a gust of breeze on a hot afternoon. The first six too came down the ground, when Yash Dayal faltered on the fuller side.

The bowlers responded by bowling short, whereupon he cut with disdain, often behind the square. Then he went into a boundary lull, as the introduction of spinners made finding boundaries fraught with multiple risks. Yet, he had the wits and plans to manufacture boundaries, so that the run-rate doesn’t plummet horribly. He reverse-swept leg-spinner Suyash Sharma, the key being concealing his intention at the last microsecond, just after Suyash bowled the ball. In a blur, he pirouettes to the opposite postcode of his crease, the transfer of stance buttery smooth, and pierces the ball through the gap between the short third man and backward point.

More daring was a scooped six off Josh Hazlewood later in the outing. Watching him shuffle across, the Australian hurled the ball as wide as he could, but Jaiswal controlled his body’s descent to the ground with the elasticity of a break dancer and flapped it over fine leg. Tragically for the hosts, he departed three balls later to deny the final push to a total in the vicinity of two hundred.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 173 for 4 in 20 ovs (Jaiswal 75, Jurel 35 n.o) lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru 175/11 in 17.3 ovs (Phil Salt 65, Virat Kohli 62 n.o, Devdutt Padikkal 40 n.o)