It was just another flamboyant day at the office for Royal Challengers Bangalore when the two giants of the game AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli stitched a partnership against Gujarat Lions that can just be labelled as “brutal”. Batting first in Bengaluru, the hosts lost opener Chris Gayle early in the proceedings but the fall of left-handed batsman just proved to be costly for the visitors.
Kohli who was already at the crease was joined by another innovative batsman AB de Villiers and the duo didn’t really waste much time to begin the counter-attack. De Villiers remained unbeaten on 129 for which he extracted just 52 balls whereas, skipper Kohli smashed 55-ball 109.
The Gujarat bowlers had an atrocious time with the ball as it was only Ravindra Jadeja who had an economy of less than 10 after he completed his quota of four overs. Other than him, only Praveen Kumar managed to complete his allotted overs and the Gujarat skipper Brendon McCullum used a total of seven players. Seven Gujarat bowlers provided their services for the completion of 20 overs.
Chasing a mammoth total of 249 runs in 20 overs, Gujarat Lions never looked in shape and lost wickets at equal intervals just to get to a struggling position of 74/8. Aaron Finch tried to show some resistance towards the pressure situation but was undone for 37 by Sachin Baby.
Lions were bundled out for a total of 104 in 18.4 overs to hand RCB a win by 144 runs. Bangalore later manged to make a cut into the final of the tournament.
