The Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) are locked horns with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at PCA’s IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali. After winning the toss, the RCB skipper, Virat Kohli asked the hosts to bat first citing the chances of heavy dew in the second innings. However, the decision proved to be a perfect one as RCB finally found a win in this season and KXIP lost their first game at home in IPL 2019.
During the toss, the MI skipper, R Ashwin revealed that they have made three changes in their squad Hardus Viljoen, Karun Nair, and Ankit Rajpoot made way for Mayank Agarwal, Andrew Tyer, and M Ashwin. On the other hand, RCB made just one change as Tim Southee made way for Umesh Yadav.
WATCH – Mohammad Siraj Also Gets A Six And Out
Gayle and Rahul started blasting the RCB bowlers from the start as they amassed 60 runs in the powerplay overs. However, in the 7th over Rahul got out after smashing a six to Yuzvendra Chahal. In his next over, Chahal did the same to Mayank Agarwal as after smashing a six to Chahal, Agarwal got out on the very next ball. Even Sarfaraz Khan also got out after smashing the six, but this time the bowler was Mohammad Siraj.
WATCH – Yuzvendra Chahal Gets A Couple Of Six And Out
After Khan’s dismissal, even, Sam Curran was soon dismissed, but Gayle carried forward the momentum as he remained unbeaten till the end of the innings still failed to scored a century and missed it by just one run. However, with some late fireworks from Mandeep Singh KXIP managed to reach the total of 173/4 in their quota of 20 overs.
Kohli and ABD’s partnership
During the chase, the RCB started off well as Virat Kohli and Parthiv Patel amassed 43 runs for the opening wicket under four overs before the latter being dismissed by R Ashwin. Then came AB de Villiers came out to bat and along with Kohli he almost took the game away from the hosts. Kohli and AB added 85 runs for the 2nd wicket with both of them scoring a fifty as well. However, in the RB skipper got out in the 16th over with RCB requiring around 45 runs in the last four over.
Along with Marcus Stoinis, De Villiers added 46 runs for the third wicket and they took RCB over the line with 4 balls to spare and 8 wickets in hand.
Brief score:
Royal Challengers Bangalore – 174/2 in 19.2 overs (AB de Villiers: 59*, V Kohli: 67; R Ashwin: 1/30) defeated Kings XI Punjab – 173/4 in 20 overs (C Gayle: 99*; Y Chahal: 2/33, M Ali: 1/19) by 8 wickets and 4 balls to spare
