Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) star batsman AB de Villiers played an outstanding knock to help his side post a good total on the scoreboard after a good job by the Kings XI Punjab bowlers at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, Ravichandran Ashwin won the toss and elected to bowl first considering that it is easier to chase in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Both the team made two changes each with Dale Steyn missing in this game with a slight niggle – much to the disappointment of the Royal Challengers Bangalore fans. Virat Kohli and Parthiv Patel got the home side off to a flier. They took 29 runs off the first two over and in the middle Hardus Viljoen dropped a sitter off Kohli. The Bangalore skipper then followed it up with pristine boundaries.
But Mohammed Shami struck back in the first ball of the fourth over to dismiss Virat Kohli to draw the first blood. However, Parthiv Patel has been their consistent man in times of distress and today was no different. The southpaw hurled at everything to give Royal Challengers Bangalore the second-best powerplay score of the season – 70 for one. But Murugan Ashwin provided a breakthrough in the second ball after the powerplays to help Kings XI Punjab nip back in the game.
De Villiers leads the charge
This opened up the game as two more strikes from Punjab bowlers had Bangalore at 81 for four after a rollicking start. Since then, AB de Villiers combined well with Marcus Stoinis to bail their side out of danger.
However, from 70 for one in six overs, Royal Challengers Bangalore have crashed and burned through to 109 for four in 14 overs, and run the risk of posting yet another sub-par score. The choke has been put on by the Kings XI Punjab trio of Murugan Ashwin, Ravichandran Ashwin and Hardus Viljoen.
The South African-Australian pair added a fifty run stand to post 138 runs at the end of 17 overs to set the platform for the carnage in the last three overs. AB de Villiers made a turnaround in the 18th over, taking Hardus Viljoen for 16 runs and eventually bringing his half-century. In the next over, de Villiers took 21 runs off Mohammed Shami’s over hitting him for three back to back sixes. The former South African continued his outstanding hitting to post 202 runs at the end of 20 overs after hitting Viljoen for 27 runs in the 20th over to finish the innings on a real high.
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