MOHALI, India (AP) — Virat Kohli smashed his fourth half century of the season and led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a commanding seven-wicket win over Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League on Sunday.
Kohli masterminded Bengaluru’s perfect chase of 159-3 with an unbeaten 73 off 54 balls after Punjab got pinned down for 157-6 at its home ground.
Bengaluru, which won all its five away games this season but lost all three matches at home, jumped to No. 3 in the points table and pushed Punjab to No. 4 on net run-rate.
In the later game on Sunday, five-time champion Mumbai Indians won the toss at Wankhede and elected to field against bottom-placed Chennai Super Kings.
Kohli leads another masterful chase
Bengaluru made amends for its loss against Punjab at home just 48 hours ago as Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal featured in a productive 103-run second-wicket stand off 69 balls to seal the game.
Arshdeep Singh provided the breakthrough in the first over when he beat Phil Salt with a sharp short ball and found the outside edge of the bat as the Englishman went for a pull.
But Kohli allowed Padikkal to be more aggressive and took the back seat by rotating the strike with singles. Both batters ran hard between the wickets and even managed to run for four runs when Padikkal flicked Arshdeep to mid-wicket.
Padikkal didn’t allow Yuzvendra Chahal to settle down with a big hit over long-on off the first ball from the leg-spinner before he fell to another spinner, Harpreet Brar, in the 13th over.
Padikkal hit five fours and four sixes in his aggressive 61 off 35 balls before he holed out to long-on while going for another big hit.
Kohli, who hit five boundaries in the batting powerplay, raised his fifty off 43 balls before hitting two more boundaries and a six in his match-winning knock as Chahal got the consolation wicket of captain Rajat Patidar (12) when Bengaluru was only 15 runs away from victory.
Spinners pin down Punjab
Bengaluru spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma tied down Punjab batters with four wickets for 51 runs off their combined eight overs.
Openers Prabhsimran (33) and Priyansh Arya (22) provided Punjab with a brisk start of 42 off 26 balls but both fell to left-arm spinner Pandya.
Fast bowler Romario Shepherd, playing his first IPL game of the season, got the big wicket of captain Shreyas Iyer (6) in his first over as Punjab slipped to 68-3 in the eighth over.
Iyer’s run of poor scores at home continued when Pandya grabbed a spectacular running catch from long-on. Nehal Wadhera, whose vital cameo led Punjab to victory in Bengaluru two days ago, was run out for five off six balls.
Sharma then picked up two wickets in one over as Australians Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis were clean bowled and Punjab lost five wickets in the middle overs for just 67 runs.
Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar then returned in the death overs and didn’t allow the lower order to accelerate. Shashank Singh (31 not out) and Marco Jansen (25 not out) were kept quiet with Shashank hitting just one boundary and Jansen two sixes.
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The Associated Press
