Riding on a fine bowling performance by Wanindu Hasaranga, Royal Challengers Bangalore got their first points in the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League with a three-wicket victory against Kolkata Knight Riders at the DY Patil Stadium on Wednesday.
Bangalore bowled out Kolkata for 128 in 18.5 overs before scoring 132/7 in 19.2 overs.
Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee were excellent with the new ball for Kolkata. The senior Indian pacer struck with the third delivery of the RCB innings by removing Anuj Rawat, before Southee got the wicket of RCB skipper Faf du Plessis in the next over.
Umesh then got the all-important wicket of Virat Kohli with the first ball of his second over. The delivery shaped away and Kohli (12 off 7) poked at it to get an edge to the keeper. Umesh went on to finish with figures of 2/16 while Southee returned with 3/20.
The Royal Challengers had been reduced to 17/3 but David Willey (18 off 28) and Sherfane Rutherford then added a crucial 45-run partnership for the fourth wicket to revive the RCB chase.
Shahbaz Ahmed, in at No 6, then played positively and scored 27 off 20. He added a 39-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Rutherford (28 off 40).
It finally came down to the vastly experienced Dinesh Karthik, who was held back to play the finisher’s role, to get the job done against his former team.
And Karthik delivered with a composed knock of 14* off 7 to take his team over the line. Bangalore need seven runs off the last over and the right-hander hit Andre Russell for a six and a four to seal the deal.
Karthik was well supported by Harshal Patel at the end. The right-hander hit Venkatesh Iyer for two fours in the penultimate over of the innings to ease the nerves in the RCB camp.
Earlier, RCB won the toss and opted to bowl first before putting KKR under presser from the get-go.
Akash Deep was the first change bowler and the right-arm medium pacer got the breakthrough for RCB in the third over by removing Venkatesh Iyer.
The Knight Riders then lost the wickets of Ajinkya Rahane, Nitish Rana and skipper Shreyas Iyer for 14 runs as the RCB attack started to fire in unison.
While Akash Deep made a key contribution and finished with figures of 3/45 from 3.5 overs, the star with the ball for RCB was Hasaranga.
The Sri Lankan leg-spinner settled into a nice rhythm and showed why RCB rated him so highly at the auction. He first got the important wicket of Iyer and followed that up by dismissing Sunil Narine, Sheldon Jackson and Tim Southee to return with figures of 4/20 from his four overs. He was declared the player of the match for his top effort.
For Kolkata, barring Jackson who got out for a duck, all the batters got brief starts but couldn’t kick-on and get a big one. The highest run scorer for them was Andre Russell at No 8 who got 25 off 18.
The highest partnership for KKR was the 10th wicket one between Umesh and Varun Chakravarthy for 27 runs.
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