The Royal Challengers Bangalore are all about their unbelievable batting power - with Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, Albie Morkel and Yuvraj Singh forming the IPL's most feared batting unit. So, if the bowlers also come to the party for RCB, there really will be little the opposition can do to stop the Bangalore side.
With question marks the size of the Himalayas hanging around the bowling unit of RCB, the men with the white ball in their hands stepped up admirably, cutting the Delhi Daredevils top order to size to set the game up for their batsmen, who despite being far from their best, were still near unstoppable.
After being put into bat on a two-paced wicket in Sharjah, the Daredevils were in big trouble on 17 for three and 35 for four, before JP Duminy (67) and Ross Taylor (43) put on a brilliant unconquered 110-run partnership to take their side to a we-can-at-least-try-and-defend-from-here 145 for four in 20 overs.
Even without Chris Gayle, who sat the game out with a back injury, the score was never really going to be enough, with Kohli (49, 38b, 2x4, 3x6) and Yuvraj (52, 29b, 3x4, 5x6) taking full advantage of some poor catching from the Daredevils to ease RCB to the target in just 16.4 overs for a big eight-wicket win.
Without Gayle, Nic Maddinson was given an opportunity to impress, while Parthiv Patel looked to give his usual quick start at the other end.
Maddinson, who played a nice little innings against India in a T20I last year, though, could not make use of his chance to impress, with Shami inducing a glove to the wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik off a nice short delivery.
Parthiv, however, played a good hand, finding the boundaries during the first six overs as Virat Kohli took his time to settle in before inevitably chasing down the total like only he can. Parthiv (37, 28, 5x4, 1x6) took RCB to 62 in the ninth over, before being castled by Rahul Sharma, and with it setting the stage for Yuvraj I-really-need-some-runs Singh to live up to that Rs 14 crore price tag.
Shami was brought on to give Yuvraj a little bit of a pace barrage, and the left-hander struggled considerably early on, before a release over from Rahul Sharma turned things around for the under-fire left-hander. Suddenly a couple of boundaries and Yuvraj looked a lot better as Kohli also looked to catch fire at the other end.
It was far from a vintage Kohli innings, however, with the India superstar dropped two times, by Jimmy Neesham and Mayank Agarwal, in the same over from Wayne Parnell. Giving Kohli two lives is like putting your head inside a lion's mouth - bye bye birdie. Kohli teed off after the ridiculous gifts, finding sixes at will, massive ones at that, to take RCB to 146 for two with 20 balls to spare.
Earlier, the Delhi Daredevils, without injured skipper Kevin Pietersen, would have struggled to get to 100 had it not been for an outstanding century partnership between Duminy and Taylor, with the former tonking the balls for maximums towards the end to give his side that extra edge.
Disaster would be the apt word to use to describe Delhi's Powerplay overs, with the Daredevils losing three big wickets to put themselves under tremendous pressure.
After a couple of tight overs from RCB, Mitchell Starc (4-0-33-1) sent the unimpressive Mayank Agarwal packing, with the right-hander top-edging a pull attempt to Kohli.
Albie Morkel struck in the next over, a peach of a delivery which left the right-hander with stand-in captain Dinesh Karthik, as fiancé Dipika Pallikal watched from the stands, falling for a first-ball duck.
Varun Aaron then made it 17 for three with his first delivery, with Manoj Tiwary tickling one down the leg side to wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel. Aaron was quite impressive with the ball, unlike his performances recently for India, giving away just 18 runs from his three overs, with a wicket maiden included.
Murali Vijay, playing for a team not named CSK for the first time in the IPL, and JP Duminy looked to hang around together for a while, and attempt to bring the Daredevils somewhere near the shore, but the former, after a 20-ball 18 (1x4, 1x6), was castled by the impressive Yuzvendra Chahal (one for 18) off a delivery that drifted in and then spun away to clip off.
That brought former RCB favourite Taylor to the crease and the experienced New Zealander allied with Duminy (67, 48b, 4x4, 3x6) to great effect, putting on an unbeaten 110 runs in 77 balls to define Delhi's innings.
Both players were happy to pick up the singles and keep the scoreboard ticking along as much as possible, and while Duminy always looked capable of hitting the big shots whenever the opportunity presented itself, Taylor (43, 39b, 4x4) struggled for timing throughout his innings.
To the right-hander's credit, though, he did not give his wicket away, which in turn helped Duminy to play a lot more freely. With James Neesham and Wayne Parnell to come in late on, the Daredevils stepped up the try-and-hit-every-ball-for-a-six party, with Duminy, who became the 40th batsman to complete 1000 runs in the IPL during his innings, connecting to great effect as Delhi managed 63 runs from the final five overs to take the score past 140.
However, with Kohli and Yuvraj finding form, the chase was easy as pie for RCB.
