Bangalore: Virat Kohli played a captain's knock of 93 runs and helped Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Tuesday.
Chasing a target of 162 runs, Royal Challengers Bangalore was off to a great start with their opening pair of Mayank Agarwal and Chris Gayle. Agarwal smashed 12 runs in the first over of the innings and displayed quite an aggressive approach. They kept scoring boundary in every over and the duo smashed 15 runs off Ishant Sharma. The dangerous pair was unsettled by Thisara Perera who bowled with some extra pace and and Mayank Aggarwal edged it to Kumar Sangakkara. Ishant came back really well after he was thrashed for 15 runs in his second over as he got the big wicket of Chris Gayle and that brought some sigh of relief for the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers who were new to the crease took their time and played the balls at their merits. Till the 10th over of the match, they put up 69 runs on the board.
Kohli and De Villiers put up a 49-run stand and took their team to the score of 96 in just 12 overs. Kohli played the active part in this partnership and did the maximum scoring. After the departure of De Villiers , Kohli kept score ticking and by the end of 15th, RCB was cruising at 117/3. But the 16th over that was bowled by Amit Mishra was the most expensive over of the match as he was smashed for 21 runs, including two back to back sixes in the first two deliveries by Virat. Mishra ended up with the figures of 42/0 in his four overs.
Earlier, Sunrisers had a decent start as the opening duo of Akshath Reddy and Parthiv Patel added 12 runs in the first two overs. But RP Singh, who was playing his first match of this season of IPL, got the wicket of Reddy who was trying to go for a biggie but misjudged the in-swinging delivery and was caught at wide mid-on. Sangakkara and Patel kept score board ticking but a bowling change made by Virat Kohli, did the trick for Bangalore as Muttiah Muralitharan got rid of Parthiv Patel with a superb delivery that kissed the off-stump and left Parthiv clueless. At the end of first 10 overs, Sunrisers were 62 for the loss of two wickets.
Sangakkara, who was looking good, again wasted the good start as he got out to Murli Kartik while going for a big hit to accelerate the run rate. He contributed 23 runs to the team total and Hyderabad was 62/3. In came to bat, Cameron White and Thisara Perera, and the duo started taking some quick singles and created a good amount of pressure on fielders. They played the the waiting game till the 14th over before going all guns blazing against the Bangalore bowlers.
Thisara Perera scored a magnificent 40 runs off just 24 balls which was decorated with four huge sixes and one four. On the other hand, Cameron White smashed a breath-taking 52 runs off just 34 balls which was studded with three fours and three sixes. They were looking really dangerous and a total of 175 were looking on the cards but brilliant bowling from RP Singh changed the course of the game as he disturbed the off-stump of Thisara Perera in the 18th over. White got out in the penultimate over off Vinay Kumar. Sunrisers Hyderabad ended up posting a competitive total of 161 on the board.
By ISN