RCB brings down sun

HYDERABAD: Royal Challengers Bengaluru earned a 35-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL here on Thursday. This is RCB’s second win in nine matches, while SRH suffered its third loss in eight matches to remain third. Despite the victory, RCB is rooted to the bottom of the table.

Set to chase 207, the much-vaunted SRH batting came a cropper, losing half its side with just 69 runs. From thereon, it was an uphill task even as captain Pat Cummins waged a spirited battle scoring 31 (15b, 1x4, 3x6) and there remained a glimmer of hope until he got out. Shahbaz Ahmed remained unbeaten on 40 (37b, 1x4, 1x6). For RCB, Swapnil Singh (2/40), Karn Sharma (2/29) and Cameron Green (2/12) shared six wickets between them.

Earlier Rajat Patidar’s explosive innings stood in stark contrast to Virat Kohli’s measured approach as Royal Challengers Bengaluru put up 206 for seven. Patidar (50 off 20 balls, 2x4; 5x6) did the bulk of the work in his 65-run stand with Kohli (51 off 43, 4x4; 1x6) who was focused on giving the strike to his partner, an approach which was questioned by Sunil Gavaskar on air.

Cameron Green (37 not out off 20) and Swapnil Singh (12 off 6) came up with timely strikes in the death overs to take RCB past 200. RCB was all guns blazing in the first three overs with Kohli and Faf du Plessis (25 off 12) going hard at the SRH bowlers, including opposition skipper Pat Cummins who conceded 19 runs in his first over.

However, from 43 for no loss of the first 18 balls, RCB could only reach 61 for 1 by the end of the powerplay. Du Plessis was deceived by a slow short ball from T Natarajan to be caught by Aiden Markram at mid-off.

Will Jacks (6 off 9) went for a wild slog sweep off a flighted delivery from leg-spinner Mayank Markande but could not make contact to be bowled, leaving RCB 65 for two in seven overs.

That was when Kohli and Patidar got together to take the innings forward.

BRIEF SCORES: RCB 206/7 in 20 overs (V Kohli 51, R Patidar 50, J Unadkat 3/30) bt SRH 171/8 in 20 overs (S Ahmed 40*)