Royal Challengers Bangalore win opening IPL match by 2 wickets

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) kicked off their VIVO Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 campaign with a 2-wicket win against the Mumbai Indians (MI) on Friday at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

Harshal Patel starred with the ball, picking a fifer and AB de Villiers provided the finishing touch, giving RCB their first win of the season.

Chris Lynn along with the six-foot-eight-inch left-arm Proteas seamer, Marco Jansen made their respective debuts for MI.

A change in IPL franchise seems to have worked wonders for Australian batting all-rounder Glenn Maxwell, at least going by his show for his new team Royal Challengers Bangalore in the tournament opener against Mumbai Indians.

The hard-hitting right-handed batsman, who had failed to impress with the bat while turning out for the Punjab franchise in IPL 2020, hit a 28-ball 39 (4x3, 6x2) to help RCB clinch a 2-wicket thriller against Mumbai in the opening match of the season on Friday.

The highest that the Aussie all-rounder got last season was just 32.

Maxwell had failed to hit a six in the whole of last season. He faced 106 deliveries across 13 matches but couldn't send a single shot over the boundary for a six. He hit just nine fours and aggregated just 108 runs at a strike rate of 101.88 and an average of 15.42.

No wonder, Punjab Kings released him ahead of this season's IPL mini-auction. However, RCB picked him up for a whopping Rs 14.25 crore with skipper Virat Kohli showing immense faith in the Aussie.

"He's a good guy, we've caught up in the past as well when I was in Australia on a tour. He's just very happy to be in RCB and I see a different energy about him this time," Kohli said in a video uploaded by the franchise on its Youtube page.

Scores:
Royal Challengers Bangalore 160/8 (AB de Villiers 48, Maxwell 39, Bumrah 2/26) beat Mumbai Indians 159/9 (Chris Lynn 49, Suryakumar Yadav 31, Harshal Patel 5/27) by 2 wickets