The enduring image of the day was that of Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli on the crease together for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Champions League Super 8 game against Victoria. Earlier in the day, Kohli had replaced Dravid in the ODI squad for the home against Australia but here they were joining forces against a state team from Down Under.

The irony was hard to miss as Dravid outscored Kohli, and his innings of 33 helped the Royal Challengers set a respectable target of 128. His knock had four hits to the fence and one over it.

But in the context of the game, Dravid’s success or Kolhi’s failure didn’t matter as Victoria recorded a seven-wickets win over the Royal Challengers.

Significant contributions

There was no standalone performer for the winners in the batting department, but there were small, significant contributions. Rob Quiney, Brad Hodge and Aiden Blizzard were out in their 20s but they ensured that Victoria didn’t lose wickets in heap. Once they were out, old hands David Hussey and Cameron White came together to knocked over the winning runs with 25 balls to spare.

Earlier in the day, all-rounder Andrew McDonald had made things easy for the batsmen. Coming as the last-change bowler after national team stars Peter Siddle and Jon Holland went wicket-less, he finished with figures of 4-0-21-4.

The Bangalore side missed the all-round capabilities of Jacques Kallis, who was ruled out of the game due to injury. It was always going to be a big challenge for the Royal Challengers to fill Kallis’s shoes, considering his fine show with both the bat and ball in the last game against Otago. His innings of 73 as opener and his figures of 3/18 with the new ball had given the team a perfect start on either side of the break in that game.

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