RCB beat KKR by nine wickets at homeground
Riding on a brilliant knock of unbeaten 102 off 55 deliveries by Chris Gayle, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) beat Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by nine wickets in their sixth outing of the IPL cricket tournament at Eden Gardens here Friday.
After KKR made 171 losing five wickets in their stipulated 20 overs, RCB cruised to 175 losing just one wicket with 11 balls to spare.
This was RCB?s second victory in six matches and they have now collected five points while KKR stayed put at 6 points they earned earlier after playing equal number of matches. This was also KKR?s third defeat in this IPL and second loss on trot as they were beaten by debutant Kochi Tuskers Kerala by six runs here on Wednesday.
?Man of the Match? Gayle n his fine effort was ably assisted by the other opener Tilakrantne Dilshan who made 38 off 31 balls to force a 123 run first wicket partnership before he was bowled by Balaji in the 11 point one over the innings.
Requiring 172 runs to force an outright victory , RCB started comparatively slowly but steadily with both the opener Tilakratne Dilshan and Chrish Gayle having no difficulty to tackle the KKR bowlers. With wicket at Eden playing true, the duo strated collecting runs merrily and accelerated the run arte as the overs progressed.
Of the two, Gayle looked more aggressive and punished the KKR bowlers hitting all around the wicket. This was Gayle?s second ton in the T 20 matches and the first one in IPL. In his chanceless innings Gayle had ten lusty hittings to the fence and as many as seven huge over boundaries.
Along with Gayle, Virat Kohli who joined the former after Dilshan made his exit, also remained not out scoring 30 .
Though KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir used as many as seven bowlers none of them could impress. Though L Balaji got the lone RCB wicket, he appeared to be the worst sufferer conceding as many as 43 runs during his four over spell.
Earlier, Kolkata Knight Riders, in spite of collecting 19 runs in the first over, could finally reach to a total of 171. The main run getters for KKR were opener Jack Kallis, skipper Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan who made 42, 48 and 46 respectively.
Young RCB medium pacer S Arvind emerged as the most successful bowler today, who bagged a couple of KKR scalps conceding 37 runs during three overs he bowled.