Captain Faf du Plessis top-scored with a blistering 64 while Dinesh Karthik applied the finishing touches after a batting wobble as the duo ensured Royal Challengers Bengaluru kept alive their playoff hopes with a four-wicket win over Gujarat Titans at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday.
After Yash Dayal, Vyshak Vijaykumar and Mohammed Siraj picked two wickets each in a superb bowling performance to bundle out GT for a below-par 147, du Plessis and Virat Kohli gave RCB a blazing start with a 92-run opening stand coming in just 35 balls.
Du Plessis was more aggressive of the two, hitting 10 fours and three sixes in his 23-ball stay at the crease. After he fell, GT triggered a spectacular RCB batting implosion by picking up six wickets from overs 6-11.
It took Karthik’s 21 not out and Swapnil Singh’s unbeaten 15 to get RCB over the line and help them jump to seventh place in the points table. RCB’s win also meant GT slid to ninth place and Mumbai Indians became the new occupants of tenth position in the points table.
Chasing 148, Kohli began by lofting and whipping Mohit Sharma for a brace of sixes in the opening over. Du Plessis greeted Joshua Little with a pulled four, followed by taking two fours and a six in the 20-run second over.
He then took the attack to debutant spinner Manav Suthar, taking a six and four in the third over, followed by heaving Mohit over mid-wicket to bring up RCB’s fifty in just 19 balls. There was just no stopping du Plessis as he took three more fours off Mohit in an 18-run fourth over.
After a sublime Kohli dispatched Suthar for two sixes, du Plessis completed his fifty in 18 balls and went on to slam Little for two fours and a six in the last over of power-play. But Little had the last laugh by cramping du Plessis for room and a short fine leg took the catch on top-edge, as RCB ended the Power-play at 92/1.
The fast and furious styled scoring from RCB in power-play was brought to a halt afterwards by GT as Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green perished quickly. When Kohli nicked behind off Noor Ahmad to fall for a 27-ball 42, the RCB supporting home crowd was left stunned over the batting meltdown resulting in the hosts’ being at 116/6 from 92/0.
Amidst incredible pressure on RCB, a calm Karthik came out to diffuse the tension in the run-chase by taking down Rashid Khan with three fours – a whip over mid-wicket was followed by pull over square leg and a firm carve over cover in a 16-run 12th over.
A brace of lovely sweeps from Swapnil Singh off Noor, followed by him slamming Rashid down the ground for a huge six ensured RCB got over the line with 38 balls to spare and relief written large on the faces of their camp.
Brief Scores:
Gujarat Titans 147 all out in 19.3 overs (Shahrukh Khan 37, Rahul Tewatia 35; Yash Dayal 2-21, Vyshak Vijaykumar 2-23) lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru 152/6 in 13.4 overs (Faf du Plessis 64, Virat Kohli 42; Joshua Little 4-45, Noor Ahmad 2-23) by four wickets.
