IPL: Royal Challengers tame Gujarat Lions

Bengaluru, May 14 (CRICKETNMORE): Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) smothered Gujarat Lions (GL) to a 144-run defeat in a lopsided Indian Premier League (IPL) contest at the M. Chinnaswami Stadium here on Saturday.

Requiring 249 runs in 20 overs with an asking rate of 12.45 runs per over, Gujarat Lions could only manage 104 runs by the 19th over, losing all 10 wickets.

Royal Challengers have thus added two more points to their tally and now have a total of 10 points. They are at the unchanged sixth position in the points table while Gujarat Lions hold on to the second position with 14 points.

Out of 11 encounters, RCB have won five and lost six. Gujarat Lions added a loss to their record, which includes seven victories in 12 encounters.

South African superstar Abraham de Villiers was adjudged the man of the match for his scintillating century for RCB.

Royal Challengers demolished the top order of the visiting team by the eighth over, reducing Gujarat Lions to 47/5.

Except for Aaron Finch (37), Ravindra Jadeja (21) and captain Brendon McCullam (11), all the other Gujarat batsmen fizzled out with single digit scores.

Yet again, Royal Challengers bowling mainstay Yuzvendra Chahal produced an excellent effort with the ball. He went 3/19 in four overs with an economy of just 4.75 while Sachin Baby took two wickets in just four balls of his only over.

Chris Jordan emerged as the most successful Royal Challengers bowler, claiming four wickets in three overs for just 11 runs.

Earlier, Royal Challengers batsmen Abraham de Villiers (129) and Virat Kohli (109) pummelled the Gujarat Lions bowling attack to blast electrifying centuries, powering the team to 248/3 in 20 overs.

De Villiers, who remained unbeaten, smashed 12 sixes and 10 fours while Royal Challengers captain Kohli blasted eight sixes and six fours. Kohli hit a 55-ball-109 while de Villiers smashed a 52-ball-129.

Altogether, RCB cracked 17 fours and 20 sixes. Of the total 248 runs scored, 188 emerged from boundaries alone. Other than the two centurions, only Chris Gayle hit a four.

De Villiers and Kohli built a partnership of 229 runs in 97 balls. At one time in the last stages of the innings, the duo plundered 47 runs off 14 balls.

Some of the sixes hit by de Villiers are so unique that only he could have hit them. Some of the shots demanding extreme flexibility included a couple of deep sixes near the third man position, rarely seen before.

Not just boundaries, quick running between the wickets also helped Royal Challengers greatly in grabbing many quick singles and exploiting sloppy fielding by the Gujarat Lions at times.

Hell-bent on ending his run of poor form, Chris Gayle kept it slow, trying to steal quick singles. Despite exhibiting great discipline, Gayle succumbed to an inside edge off Dhawal Kulkarni in the fifth ball of the fourth over.

Enter de Villiers, and the face of the innings changed with regular boundaries all over the ground with all possible shots.

Despite starting his innings much later than Kohli, de Villiers reached his half-century in 25 balls in the 12th over by a four off Kulkarni.

Until the fall of Kohli in the second last ball off the match, RCB did not lose a wicket after the dismissal of Gayle in the fourth over, manifesting the hard-hitting determination of the centurions in the match.

Interestingly, Kohli reached the milestone of scoring 3,000 IPL runs in this match, to join two other Royal Challengers, de Villiers and Gayle.

Except for Ravindra Jadeja who had figures of 0/34 in four overs, all the other Gujarat Lions bowlers conceded expensive economy rates ranging between 11 to 16.66.

Though Praveen Kumar leaked 45 runs in four overs, he claimed two wickets while Kulkarni (1/33) was the only other bowler to claim a wicket.

Brief scores:

Royal Challengers Bangalore 248/3 in 20 overs (Abraham de Villiers 129 not out, Virat Kohli 109; Praveen Kumar 2/45, Dhawal Kulkarni 1/33) beat Gujarat Lions 104 all out in 20 overs (Aaron Finch 37, Ravindra Jadeja 21; Chris Jordan 4/11, Yuzvendra Chahal 3/19).

Agency.