South Africans rescue Bangalore
South Africans AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock helped Royal Challengers Bangalore register a fourwicket win over Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday.
Chasing 156 to win, De Villiers struck 57 and Quinton de Kock 45 as RCB tasted their first win in two matches after losing to Kolkata Knight Riders in their first match.
Despite losing opener Brendon McCullum for nought and captain Virat Kohli for 21, De Kock and De Villiers looked in good form as they steered their team closer to the target.
However the dismissal of both these batsmen brought Punjab back into the match but Mandeep Singh’s 22 from 19 balls helped them sniff victory before Washington Sundar hit the winning runs with three balls to spare.
Earlier, Kings XI Punjab were coming into the match on the back of a superb win over Delhi Daredevils.
Lokesh Rahul had smashed the fastest-ever fifty in IPL. On Friday he looked in the same devastating form when he reached 47 from 30 balls with four sixes and two fours.
He and skipper Ravichandra Ashwin (33) were the top scorers for Punjab. For Bangalore, pacer Umesh Yadav scalped three wickets while Chris Woakes, Kulwant Khejroliya and Washington Sundar took two wickets each.
Put in to bat, Punjab started off on a poor note, losing opener Mayank Agarwal (15), new batsmen Aaron Finch (0) and Yuvraj Singh (4) by the fourth over. With the scoreboard reading 32, Mayank and Finch were dismissed in consecutive balls, while Yuvraj was bowled on the last ball by pacer Umesh Yadav.
Unperturbed by the sudden fall of wickets, opener Lokesh Rahul (47) played sensibly and also hammered the bowlers all around the park before getting out in the 12th over to spinner Washington Sundar. In his 30ball knock, Rahul slammed two boundaries and four sixes.
Middle-order batsmen Karun Nair (29) and Marcus Stoinis (11) also failed to utilise their starts and got dismissed in back-toback overs to make the scoreboard read 102 for 5.
With their top-five players sitting in the dugout, Punjab’s lower-order got exposed early. Ashwin (33), however, tried to pace up the innings but in the process the off-spinner also got out in the penultimate over.
Andrew Tye (7) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (0) got out cheaply and Punjab only managed 155 runs in 19.2 overs.