Mohali: Royal Challengers Bangalore, who faced defeat at their home, have registered a strong victory as soon as they leave Bangalore. Bangalore defeated Punjab Kings by 24 runs at their home ground in Mohali. With this, Bangalore registered its third win in the sixth match. In the absence of Faf Duplesey, Virat Kohli, who took charge of the team after a year and a half, returned Bangalore to the path of victory.
Despite Bangalore’s strong start, after climbing only 174 runs on the scoreboard, it seemed that this chase would not be too difficult for Punjab. Mohali’s pitch, however, proved contrary to expectations and batting proved difficult. Also, due to bad weather, the Punjab batsmen also made mistakes like playing big shots and bad running.
From Powerplay to the end, Siraj wreaked havoc
The beginning of Punjab Kings was very bad. Like almost every previous match, the Bangalore bowlers again wreaked havoc in the powerplay. On the basis of Mohammad Siraj and Wanindu Hasaranga, Bangalore had rolled 4 wickets of Punjab in the powerplay. Siraj took the wickets of Atharva Taide and Liam Livingston, while Hasaranga bowled Matthew Short. Siraj then ran out Harpreet Singh Bhatia on an excellent direct hit.
However, Prabhsimran Singh continued to score runs and kept the team in the match by scoring some good shots. Captain Sam Karan gave some support for some time but he too got run out on Hasaranga’s direct throw due to poor running.
In the 13th over, only 7 wickets of the team had fallen for 106 runs. In such a situation, Jitesh Sharma was all dependent and Punjab’s wicketkeeper played a counter-attacking innings to raise hopes of victory. However, Siraj ended this hope by taking two wickets in the 18th over and the last wicket in the form of Jitesh fell on the very first ball of the 19th over.
RCB slowed down after fast batting
Even though Bangalore won this match, but seeing the batting of the team, he too must have got tense at one point of time. Virat Kohli and Faf Duplesey made a century partnership for the second time this season. Both had hit 98 runs in 11 overs but gradually the Punjab bowlers troubled both the batsmen by changing the pace. Especially Kohli was seen struggling a lot.
While Duplessis brought up his fourth half-century in 31 balls, Kohli completed his fifty in 40 balls. There was a partnership of 137 runs in 16 overs between the two.
After the break of this partnership, Bangalore could not score much runs in the last 4 overs. Harpreet Brar dismissed Kohli on the first ball of the 17th over and Glenn Maxwell was also dismissed on the next ball of the same over. After Duplesey’s dismissal, Bangalore’s finisher could not even reach the team’s 180 runs in the last balls. Bangalore scored only 37 runs in the last 4 overs.
