Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers butchered Kings XI Punjab

Chris Gayle struck a brilliant 87 as Royal Challengers Bangalore comfortably beat Kings XI Punjab by five wickets in their IPL match at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) Stadium here Friday.

Chris Gayle and AB de Villliers - Snatched the match

Gayle and A.B. de Villiers (52) added 131 runs for the fifth wicket as Royal Challengers Bangalore, set a target of 164, made 166 with three balls to spare. Gayle was also adjudged as Man of the Match for his brilliant 56-ball innings that was studded with eight fours and four sixes.

With their second consecutive win, Royal Challengers Bangalore got their campaign back on track after having suffered three losses on the trot.  They move up a place to the seventh spot with six points from six matches while Kings XI slipped a spot to the eighth with four points from six matches.

Asked to bat first, Kings XI Punjab, who were without their captain Adam Gilchrist, again made a poor start but crucial innings from stand-in skipper David Hussey (41) and former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood (33 not out) helped them get a competitive score of 163 for six in 20 overs . Gilchrist missed the match nursing a hamstring injury.

Kings XI pacer Parvinder Awana (4-34) raised hopes for the hosts. He bowled a brilliant first spell in which he picked up the crucial wickets of opener Mayank Aggarwal (1), Virat Kohli (4) and Saurabh Tiwary (4) to reduce Royal Challengers to 25 for three inside six overs.

But Gayle played a patient knock and took his time to settle down before an onslaught. He took 28 balls to score 31 runs but once he took on, there was no stopping him. Gayle completely dominated the century-run stand between him and De Villiers. The duo always kept Royal Challengers along with the required run rate as the boundaries came regularly.

The match looked evenly balanced till the 17th over as Royal Challengers needed 24 runs off the last three overs. But Awana, who was the bet bowler for the Kings XI till then, bowled a pathetic 18th over that made things easy for the visitors.

Gayle smashed Awana for 17 runs in the eight-ball over before departing in the fourth ball but by then he had taken Royal Challengers to the threshold of a win. Hussey took a brilliant catch at extra cover to end Gayle's whirlwind knock.

Leggie Piyush Chawla gave Kings XI a glimmer of hope after he dismissed De Villiers, trapped leg-before in the penultimate over. The South African hit six fours in the 39-ball innings.  Andrew McDonald (8 not out) and skipper Daniel Vettori (2 not out) took the team home safely without further damage.

Earlier in the day, Kings XI again made a poor start losing openers Nitin Saini (14) and Paul Valthaty (6) inside five overs.  A 30-run stand between Australians Shaun Marsh (26) and Hussey got Kings XI innings back on track.

Mahmood, who registered himself as a British citizen, made a memorable debut in the IPL smashing 33 off 14 balls that helped Kings XI get a competitive total on board. Mahmood's arrival to India was delayed due to visa issues. The 37-year-old, who has played 21 Tests and 143 ODIs, had surprisingly applied for visa in his Pakistani passport that delayed his arrival.

Gayle set up the game for RCB nail Pune in a thriller

IPL 2012

MATCH: RCB VS PUNE WARRIORS

TOSS: Pune won the toss, and elected to bat first

RESULT: Bangalore won by 6 wkts

MOM: Chris Gayle

Needing 21 off the last over, Tiwary took a single on the first delivery of Ashish Nehra to give strike to de Villiers.  The South African then smashed the second ball for a boundary and followed it by two consecutive sixes to make things easier for Bangalore.

With four required of last two balls, Villiers took a single off the fifth ball to bring Tiwary back on strike. The southpaw didn't let pressure mount on him and sailed the final delivery into the crowd over the rope to finish the game for Bangalore on style.

At halfway stage during their chase, RCB were 63 for two with Gayle at the crease. Although Gayle hit couple of huge sixes off Ashish Nehra, he wasn't at his dangerous best as he failed to find the gaps.

Virat Kohli too was taking time to get into the groove. Credit should be given to Bhuveneshwar Kumar who bowled three tight overs during the front 10. It was only after Kohli was dismissed by Angelo Mathews that Gayle decided to play his signature game.

Leg-spinner Rahul Sharma bore the brunt as Gayle launched into him hitting five consecutive sixes as 31 runs came off that over and RCB seemed to be back on track.

Gayle raced to 81 off 47 balls as he hit Ashish Nehra to notch up his eighth six but the veteran seamer bowled a perfect delivery in the blockhole that cleaned up Gayle. The Jamaican had scored 81 off 48 balls with four boundaries and eight sixes.

He smashed five sixes in an over from Rahul Sharma just after reaching his half-ton.

Ashok Dinda gave Pune first breakthrough by scalping Tilakaratne Dilshan (4) after Pune Warriors scored a massive 182/6 at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.  Dilshan was caught behind stumps while trying to flick Dinda on leg side. Marlon Samuels then dismissed Mayank Agarwal (9) to give Bangalore second blow at the score of 42 in six overs.

royal-challengers-bangalore win over PWI

royal-challengers-bangalore win over PWI

Earlier, local boy Robin Uthappa's belligerent knock of 69 along with useful contributions from Jesse Ryder and Marlon Samuels helped Pune Warriors India set a challenging 183 for Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Pune openers Jesse Ryders and Robin Uthappa got off to a cracking start adding 63 runs for the first wicket in only seven overs. The Royals introduced offie Tillekratne Dilshan in the second over where he was hammered for 13 runs which included a six and four.

Ryder started from where he left in the last match against CSK while Uthappa showed why he is so highly rated in this format.

Just when it looked that Ryder-Uthappa duo would murder the bowling, Harshal Patel provided RCB the breakthrough as Kiwi opener tried to pull him over lbackward square leg only to be caught by Mayank Agarwal at the boundary.

Uthappa had a reprieve when he tried to sweep left-arm spinner KP Appanna and TV replays showed that ball jumped off his gloves to be caught by AB de Villiers. The umpire however gave him not out and the next ball was dispatched into the deep mid-wicket stand.

The Karnataka lad quickly raced to his fourth IPL half century reverse sweeping Dilshan past short third-man for his second consecutive boundary. His 50 had seven fours and two sixes and came off only 34 balls. The Warriors reached 100 in the 11th over.

RCB responded with two quick wickets in two overs. R Vinay Kumar first picked up an woefully out-of-form Sourav Ganguly whose slash was easily caught at sweeper cover by Mayank Agarwal and in the next over Vettori sent back Uthappa 69 (45 balls 4x9 6x2).

Marlon Samuels (34, 20 balls, 1x4, 2x6) and Steven Smith (16) added 47 runs in only 4.5 overs before couple run-outs saw the back of both players. Especially Samuels who looked in fine touch and Warriors looked like having finished 15 runs short in the end.

RCB made three changes inducting Dilshan, KP Apanna and Harshal Patel in place of Muttiah Muralitharan, Mohammad Kaif and Sreenath Aravind, who all played last game against Rajasthan Royals. PWI brought in pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar replacing orthodox left-arm spinner Murali Kartik.