AB de Villiers finds form, Royal Challengers Bangalore find victory
Royal Challengers Bangalore (176-4) comfortably beat Delhi Daredevils (174-5) by 6 wickets with 2 overs remaining on the back of de Villiers’s 90-run supreme knock.
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When DD were put in to bat by Virat Kohli, many did not expect them to put up a great score given their form and repeated batting collapses. In line with the popular notion, Yuzvendra Chahal (3-22-2) and Umesh Yadav 4-27-1) bowled top-drawer overs and soon got rid of the openers Gautam Gambhir (3) – who is still struggling to get going this season – and Jason Roy (5).
However, if there are two Indian batsmen who are the mainstays of the DD line up and the ones you expect to fire if DD are to post a good total are Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant and both of them clicked today. Iyer with a 31-ball 52 set the platform for Delhi on which Pant later cashed in.
With some assistance from a scratchy look Rahul Tewatia(13), Pant tonked the ball to all parts of the park in his 48-ball 85 and took DD to a decent 174 run score.
RCB had gone down twice while chasing totals recently and though this target was relatively smaller but many feared that the team could end up with the same fate. Openers Quinton de Kock (18) and Manan Vohra (2) – playing his first match of IPL 2018 – departed without troubling the scorers much. Notwithstanding, if it was the duo of Iyer and Pant for DD, Kohli (30) and de Villiers stood up for RCB with a 63-run partnership.
With contributions from Corey Anderson and Mandeep Singh in the middle order, ABD (MoM) finished off the match for RCB with an explosive 39-ball 90 at a strike rate of over 230 with 10 fours and 5 sixes.
Mr 360 also struck the longest six (106m) of IPL 2018 in the process.
Meanwhile, skipper Virat Kohli regained the Orange Cap from his former teammate Chris Gayle.
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