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Royal Challengers Bangalore 177 for 4 (De Villiers 90*, Kohli 30) beat Delhi Daredevils 174 for 5 (Pant 85, Iyer 52, Chahal 2-22) by six wickets
Bengaluru: AB de Villiers slammed an unbeaten 90 against Delhi Daredevils to muscle Royal Challengers Bangalore to their second win in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018.
The crowd at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru was treated to fine batsmanship, first by Rishabh Pant, then by de Villiers.
A target of 176 was never going to be enough on a ground renowned for high scores. Manan Vohra and Quinton de Kock came out to open for RCB for the first time. Vohra got just 2, top-edging a sweep off Glenn Maxwell as Jason Roy took an excellent diving catch at deep square leg.
Virat Kohli added 20 with de Kock before a mix-up between Kohli and de Kock cost the latter his wicket. De Kock made a tentative run from the non-striker’s end but stopped midway, and ended up sacrificing his wicket for Kohli. De Kock made 18 off 16. Kohli was dropped off the earlier ball, off Shahbaz Nadeem.
De Villiers joined Kohli. After setting into his groove, ABD hammered Nadeem for 3 fours in a row to shift the momentum to RCB’s favour. Kohli soon joined the festivities. The pair added 50 in 30 balls including a 106m six by ABD.
Just when it seemed like they were running away with the match, Trent Boult pulled off a stunner at deep square-leg off a poor Harshal Patel full toss. Kohli fell for 30. Corey Anderson arrived with RCB still needing 83.
De Villiers raced to his fifty in 24 balls off a six over mid-wicket. He continued to launch the ball into the first, second and third tiers of Chinnaswamy. Meanwhile, Anderson continued to take singles without any fuss.
There should have been a run out, but the fielders messed things up. Then Anderson was castled by fellow countryman Boult for a 13-ball 15. Mandeep Singh came out and started his innings with a six over the wicketkeeper’s head. Mandeep (17*) did spoil the party for ABD (90*), but the pair ended up taking RCB to a 6-wicket win.
Earlier, it was the Rishabh Pant show for Delhi which helped them reach what looked like an above par score on what was a slow and a turning pitch. Gambhir's poor run continued with the bat as he was dismissed after an ugly innings, scoring just 3. Roy didn't last long either, with Chahal picking him up for 5.
Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant then got together, putting up 65 runs for the third wicket as Delhi fought their way back into the game.
Iyer scored 52 off just 31 balls, dismissed by Washington Sundar just when he was starting to look good.
Pant then started dealing in boundaries, picking pace. He hit seven sixes and six fours in his blistering innings of 85 off 48 balls.
The loss leaves Delhi firmly struck at the foot of the table with just 1 win in their 5 games. They will now move to Kotla and look to make most of the home leg, starting with a game against in-form Kings XI Punjab on Monday.
RCB meanwhile will look to continue the momentum when they take on the Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday.
