Virat Kohli is a cricketer of rare instinct and intensity. Those qualities were on abundant display at the Holkar Cricket Stadium here on Monday night, as he led Royal Challengers Bangalore to a desperately needed victory over Kings XI Punjab.
Scoreboard and ball-by-ball details
Such an authoritative win it turned out to be too, as Kohli’s men won by 10 wickets with 11.5 overs to spare. It is the fourth biggest IPL victory in terms of balls remaining.
RCB now has 10 points though it is still placed second from bottom of the table. But it has momentum going for it, having defeated Delhi Daredevils in its last game. Its rival, though, is going through a terrible run. From being on the brink of qualifying for playoffs, R. Ashwin’s men find themselves suddenly out of the top four. They would have to play much better than they did in their last two games.
Punjab was out-batted by Kolkata Knight Riders here on Saturday.
On this night, it was out-bowled. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong for the Punjab men. They lost the toss and were promptly sent in by Kohli. The RCB captain was at his aggressive best throughout. He made bowling changes tactically as well as instinctively.
His bowlers obliged him. Among them, Umesh Yadav stood out. He bowled with pace, got a bit of a swing and gave little away. And he got both the dangermen of KXIP – K.L. Rahul and Chris Gayle, who have about scored half the runs of their team in the tournament, in the same over.
The ‘Universe Boss’ had got a reprieve though off the ball of the night though, as he was dropped behind the stumps by Parthiv Patel off Umesh, who, however, would have the last laugh.
Pitching a short ball, he had Gayle caught at deep square-leg by Mohammed Siraj. The Jamaican opener was undone for yet another time in this IPL by a ball aimed at his ribcage.
Umesh had already dismissed Rahul, who has been in awesome form, with another short ball. The Karnataka opener was promising another big innings, having hit three sixes, when the law of averages finally caught up with him at deep square-leg, where he was caught by Colin de Grandhomme.
Now, it was up to the KXIP’s middle-order batsmen to improve upon their dismal record. They did nothing of the sort, as they succumbed to the pace of Mohammed Siraj and spin of Yuzvendra Chahal and Moeen Ali. KXIP also had get three of its batsmen getting run-out.
After the short innings, Kohli returned to the field and ensured the night truly belonged to him, scoring 48 not out (28b) and taking his team home in the company of fellow-opener Parthiv (40 not out, 22b).
Qualification scenario
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