Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) registered their second consecutive win of the season as led by a match-winning spell from Mitchell Starc, Varun Aaron and a blitzkrieg from Chris Gayle, they annihilated poor Delhi Daredevils (DD) by 10 wickets in the 26th match of the IPL 8 at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, Delhi.
Chasing a small target of 96, Gayle got the RCB innings off to a flier as he took the attack on the opposition bowlers to finish the match with 9.3 overs to spare. He scored 62 off just 40 balls with six 4s and four 6s and was equally supported by skipper Virat Kohli, who also remained unbeaten on 35 off 23 balls with six 4s.
Earlier after being put into bat, Daredevils went downhill right from the start. Their leading run-scorer of the season Shreyas Iyer got out on a golden duck courtesy an inswinger from Mitchell Starc. JP Duminy and Mayank Agarwal steadied the ship with their 33-run partnership, but the former tried a big drive against a delivery from David Wiese that did not quite come on, and feathered it behind to wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik. Then came the Varun Aaron show. The fast-bowler struck twice in the 7th over of the innings to get rid of Yuvraj Singh and Angelo Mathews.
With two of their mainstay batsmen back in pavilion, DD could not quite recover from the loss and Starc ran through their tail and as a result of this, their innings got ended on 95 in the 19th over. This was DD’s lowest score in the tournament so far.
Varun Aaron was awarded the man of the match for his two crucial knockout blows.
Brief Scores: Delhi Daredevils 95/10 (Jadhav 33, Starc 3-20, Aaron 2-24) lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore 99/0 (Gayle 62*) by 10 wickets