The chase was never going to be difficult for Kings XI Punjab, the team who cashed upon the gaffe committed by Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Shane Watson, who came up with something out of the box when he decided to bat first, giving the team combination as the reason.
He is himself to be blamed for the loss, not for changing winning combination but for the decision he made at the time of the toss.
Kings XI Punjab drove home easily and safely for the second consecutive time by sealing a victory by a margin of eight wickets. They never looked in any sorts of trouble, as the opening pair of Manan Vohra and Hashim Amla put up 62-runs for the first wicket in just six overs, to lay a red carpet for succeeding batsmen.
Punt to promote Axar Patel didn’t work and it was skipper Glenn Maxell who came to the fore to himself scale his team past the target.
Skipper along with Amla continued to move the team’s boat ahead and they went past RCB’s total easily, to put ABD’s efforts in vain.
Earlier in the evening, RCB had a poor start, as on the pitch which was deemed to be batting friendly and full of runs, the visitors just crumbled in front of the young bowling attack.
Skipper Shane Watson, who decided to bat first was the first one to go, who edged one back to stumps off Axar Patel in the first over of the game. Vishnu Vinod followed him after he just threw his bat following the pressure which was creating dot balls. Jadhav fell to an umpiring howler, a tough one though.
ABD finally got a pair in form of Mandeep Singh, with whom he shared 46-runs for the fourth wicket in 49 balls. The slow run rate was befitting to the situation as another loss of wicket at that time could have lowered ABD’s confidence. as well but Mandeep stayed there.
Though he ate up 34 balls for his 28 but it was the need of the hour to stay there at the crease.
De Villiers harvested the fruits of seeds sown by him and Mandeep in last five overs as he carried the team to a score of 148, which was 71 at the end of 15 overs. It seemed liked ABD was here to play T5 cricket instead of T20, as those were the five overs where he did most of the damage.
He just spoilt economical figures of each and every bowler to just put a defendable total of 148 on the board, which was earlier forecasted to be between 110-120 but opposition team chased it down easily.
With this win, KXIP continued their winning record at home by registering their second consecutive win of the ongoing season.
Brief Score: KXIP (Hashim Amla 58*, Glenn Maxwell 43*; Tymal Mills 1-22) defeat RCB (AB de Villiers 89*, Mandeep Singh 28; Varun Aaron 2-21) by eight wickets in Indore.