Bangalore: Chris Gayle once again came up with a scitillating innings of 86 runs off 50 balls to help Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) beat Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by a big margin of eight wickets at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore on Friday.
Earlier, it was the trio of RP Singh, Moises Henriques and Vinay Kumar who restricted the KKR to a total of 158 which was very much gettable with the likes of Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers and Chris Gayle at the top of the order. RP Singh was the leading wicket-taker with three crucial wickets whereas Henriques did the damage in the beginning of the KKR’s innings by taking two wickets.
Chasing the target, RCB started off badly as they lost Agarwal with just 12 runs on the board. Gayle was joined by Virat Kohli and the duo started building up the RCB innings. Kohli started playing his strokes quite freely once he was settled and was ably supported by Gayle at the other end. Kohli scored four boundaries and two sixes before getting out to a Lakshmipathy Balaji who disguised him with a slower one and broke the 63 run stand between Gayle and Kohli.
Gayle continued being nightmare for KKR bowlers and kept hitting them for those huge sixes. Kallis who was economical in first couple of overs, went for 20 runs in his final over and remained wicket-less. Gayle finished the game in the 18th over of the match by hitting the biggest six of the match. His 83-run partnership with De Villiers took RCB to their third win of this season. De Villiers scored run-a-ball 22 and kept the price on his wicket.
Earlier , KKR again had a bad start as they lost their opening batsman Manvinder Bisla in the very first over of the match as he was chased a wide delivery bowled by Moises Henriques. Gautam Gambhir and Jacques Kallis started rebuliding the KKR innings and were looking good till the time Vinay Kumar came in and took the wicket of Kallis. Yusuf Pathan came in to the middle and scored three back to back boundaries to put the pressure back on Vinay. His cameo of 27 runs gave KKR a good foundation but soon he departed when Henriques deceived with his slower one.
Manoj Tiwary and Gautam Gambhir kept the scoreboard ticking until Gambhir departed after scoring 59 off 47 balls. With Gambhir’s dismissal in the 17th over; tables got turned in RCB's favour. Vinay Kumar and RP Singh bounced back with some lethal Yorkers and got four wickets in last four overs to restrict KKR to total of 154 runs for the loss of eight wickets.