Sharjah: Royals Challengers Bangalore showed a dominant performance as they beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 82 runs in the ongoing Indian Premier League(IPL) on Monday (October 12).
Chasing a target of 195 runs, Kolkata stumbled early. Debutant Tom Banton had an outing to forget and was gone for just eight. Nitish Rana followed him soon after. Skipper Dinesh Karthik and Eoin Morgan both went to the pavilion without even reaching double digits.
Youngster Shubman Gill looked good before he was run out for 34 off 25. Andre Russell’s disappointing batting stint in this season as he went for 16. Kolkata’s batsman barely put up a fight with wickets falling at regular intervals as RCB bowlers kept it tight from start to finish. Washington Sundar was the pick of the bowlers with 2/20 in his full quota but somehow his bowling prowess always gone under the radar. In the end, Knight Riders finished the innings at 112/9.
Earlier in the match, Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat first. Both the openers Devdutt Padikkal and Aaron Finch started well getting 47 in the powerplay before the youngster was dismissed playing inside-out from a Russell delivery. Finch along with skipper Virat Kohli started steading the ship but the former got out for 47 looking to accelerate.
Varun Chakravarthy looked like a useful buy at the auction as he was the pick of bowlers even without getting a wicket giving away just 25 runs from his full quota. But the day belonged to AB de Villiers. The South African ran the show at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium showing how much destructive ability he still has at this age smacking everyone out of the park scoring 73 not-out off just 33 with Kohli giving him support.
The Knight Riders bowlers towards the end looked helpless as Bangalore accumulated a chunky 65 runs in the last 4 overs to take the score to 194/2 in 20 overs.
Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 194/2 (AB de Villiers 73*, Aaron Finch 47) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 112/9 (Shubman Gill 34; Washington Sundar 2/20) by 82 runs.
