Bowlers Led Bangalore Destroy Royals

Bangalore: Despite quick wickets after solid opening stand, Chris Gayle and Saurabh Tiwary guided Bangalore to a comfortable 7-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals.

Bangalore bowled brilliantly to bowl Rajasthan for 117 and chased the total down with ease. Gayle anchored the chase with a sedate 44 ball 49 while RP Singh and Vinay picked 3 wickets each.

Gayle remained unbeaten on 49 while Tiwary made 25 not out to help Bangalore successfully chase down 118 with 13 balls to spare.

After a solid 53-run opening stand, Bangalore lost Tillakaratne Dilshan, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in quick succession to bring Royals back in the game.

Shane Watson got rid of Tillakaratne Dilshan while James Faulkner bowled out Kohli to reduce Bangalore to 57/2.

Before the hosts could recover from the double blow, Watson struck again by sending back de Villiers. Ajit Chandilla took a stunner to leave Royals struggling at 64/3.

Dilshan made 21 and guided the side past 50 mark in just 37 balls along with partner Chris Gayle before getting caught behind in the seventh over.

Put into bat, the Rahul Dravid-led team suffered a batting collapse as they were all out for their lowest total in this IPL season in 19.4 overs in the face of a brilliant bowling performance by the home side on a relatively good batting wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Vinay Kumar continued with his bowling form by picking up three wickets for 18 runs. His pace-bowling colleague R P Singh joined the party with figures of three for 13 while Ravi Rampaul scalped two wickets for 19 runs. Jaydev Unadkat and Murali Kartik bagged one wicket each.

Dravid's wicket triggered a batting collapse as Hodge (13 off 17 balls) edged one to wicket-keeper Arun Karthik off Vinay Kumar soon after.

James Faulkner (3), Dishant Yagnik (5), S Sreesanth (0), Shaun Tait (1) and Siddharth Trivedi (3) could not do much as RP Singh and Vinay Kumar got wickets in quick succession.

Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore won the toss and elected to bowl first.

RP Singh replaces Rahul, Dilshan replaces Andrew McDonald, Syed Mohammad is in the team. It is pretty hard to defend in Bangalore and we will look to stifle the Rajasthan batsmen.

Teams

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Chris Gayle, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Saurabh Tiwary, Arun Karthik (wk), Ravi Rampaul, Vinay Kumar, Jaidev Unadkat, Murali Kartik, RP Singh

Rajasthan Royals: Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Dravid (captain), Brad Hodge, Stuart Binny, Dishant Yagnik (wk), James Faulkner, Ajit Chandila, Siddharth Trivedi, Shaun Tait, S Sreesanth

Brief scores
Rajasthan Royals 117 (Dravid 35, Binny 33, RP Singh 3-13, Vinay Kumar 3-18)
Royal Challengers Bangalore 123 for 3 (Gayle 49*)
Result Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 7 wickets
Points Royal Challengers Bangalore 2, Rajasthan Royals 0
MOM Vinay Kumar (Royal Challengers Bangalore)