When the Delhi Daredevils won the toss against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday, captain Zaheer Khan joked, "When Virat is chasing, he is very dangerous. So we decided to bowl first.” Turns out Khan was spot on, because Kohli played a solid knock batting first, but it just wasn’t enough to keep his team from losing by seven wickets to Delhi in their Indian Premier League clash in Bangalore on Sunday.

Put in to bat, the home team lost big-hitting Chris Gayle to a duck, but Kohli had no such trouble. He smashed seven fours and three sixes on his way to a 48-ball 79, getting good company from AB de Villiers (55 off 33 balls) and Shane Watson (33 off 19 balls). Although a couple of wickets and some sharp bowling in the death by Delhi stemmed their momentum towards the end, Bangalore put up a strong 191 at the end of their 20 overs. Mohammed Shami picked up two wickets for Delhi, while Khan and Carlos Braithwaite picked up a wicket apiece.

The Delhi Daredevils started their chase steadily, notching up 93/2 in the first ten overs, largely thanks to some heavy-hitting by Quinton de Kock. He was aided deftly by Karun Nair, and the two piled on a partnership of 134 runs and kept steadily on top of the asking rate. On the other hand, Bangalore's bowlers had nothing to write home about, with Shane Watson and Sreenath Aravind picking up the only three Delhi wickets to fall. With four overs to go, Nair completed his fifty to a standing ovation and a hug from de Kock, who reached his hundred a few balls later. Though de Kock fell to Watson in the penultimate over, Delhi breezed through the last few runs or so, comfortably reaching Bangalore's target with five balls to spare.