De Villiers scripts RCB win
bengaluru — AB de Villiers hit an unbeaten 90 as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Delhi Daredevils by six wickets in the 19th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
Chasing 174, de Villiers was at his best as he hits consecutive boundaries to help his team overhaul Delhi Daredevils’ score. He hit 10 boundaries and 5 sixes in his knock. Earlier, wickets did fell but he kept going and never let the required run rate climb up. Royal Challengers Banglore had a bad start as Openers Manan Vohra and Quinton De Kock were dismissed cheaply and RCB could score only 43-2 in powerplay.
Earlier, Shreyas Iyer (52) and Rishabh Pant (85) helped Delhi Daredevils (DD) post a fighting 174/5 Iyer and Pant showed some resistance, sharing a 75-run partnership
for the third wicket as Delhi recovered from a poor start.
Put into bat, Delhi were off to a poor start as both the openers Jason Roy (5) and Gautam Gambhir (3) were back in the dug out with the scorecard overs. While reading pacer just Umesh 23 runs Yadav in dismissed 5.4 Gambhir, spinner Yuzvendra Chahal clean bowled Roy.
Pant and Iyer eased the pressure on the visitors as they took time to settle down before finding occassional big shots. Spinner Washington Sundar finally broke Delhi’s momentum, dismissing Iyer, who was looking good, in the 14th over with Delhi’s score being 98/3. Iyer departed after hitting four fours and three sixes. With the addition of just another seven runs in Delhi’ scorecard, Chahal sent back incoming batter Glenn Maxwell (4).
However, Pant kept the fight alive for his side and slammed 18 runs off a Chris Woakes’ 18th over to lift Delhi to 163/4. Trying to go big in the final over, Pant was finally dis- missed by Corey Anderson. The Delhi batter’s 48-ball 85-run knock was guided by six boundaries and seven sixes. Rahul Tewatia’s 13 off 9 for Delhi helped the visitors reach a fighting total. For RCB, Chahal was the pick of the bowlers with fig- ures of 2/22 while Umesh, Anderson and Sundar bagged one wicket apiece. — Agencies