The Gujarat Lions won their fourth match of the IPL 2016 season with a six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Rajkot yesterday.
The new franchise, after winning their first three, have now won four of their five matches, while the RCB’s inconsistencies continue, with two wins and three defeats to their name.
Virat Kohli, arguably the best batsman in the world in this format, and across the other formats for that matter, scored a century–a feat that had eluded him in this format until now, which was made all the more special considering it came on his idol Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday.
It was to no avail, however, as a blistering start from the Lions paved the way for what turned out to be a comfortable chase in the end.
RCB, after winning the toss and choosing to bat first, were slow going at first, with the score on 76-2 after 10 overs and 115-2 after 15, but another 104 runs were piled on in the final 10 overs, thanks to Kohli and Lokesh Rahul.
AB de Villiers scored 20 as he put on a 51-run stand with Kohli, but the tempo increased when Rahul strode out, as he scored 51 from 35, while Kohli smashed 14 runs off the final three balls to get him to the milestone.
Needing 181 for victory, the Lions, who decided to leave Dale Steyn out of this game, got off to a scorcher. That was mainly thanks to Brendon McCullum, who raced to 42 off just 24 balls, including 25 runs off the sixth and final Powerplay over.
There are not many batsmen who can go toe-to-toe with the Royal Challengers captain. He averages 110 and strikes at 141 in Twenty20s this year. So Lions had to work together, and work as perfectly as possible.
The Rajkot pitch was slow and strokeplay wasn’t particularly easy. With the new ball, you can always bank on runs though. McCullum and Dwayne Smith, who replaced Steyn, belted 72 runs from the first six overs, a record for this season, to provide a fine start to the chase.
Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik built a sensible half-century stand, using the long boundaries at the Rajkot stadium to scamper twos as often as possible to keep the asking rate in check. Karthik, who was 28 off 26 when that partnership was broken in the 16th over, accelerated to 50 off 39 balls and was unbeaten when the winning runs were struck with three balls to spare.
The man to get McCullum was Tabraiz Shamsi, and the Titans chinaman bowler was easily the best bowler on the night, with figures of 1-21 from his four overs, which included 11 dot balls.
The rest of the bowlers failed to step up, despite RCB’s victories this season having come from defending their totals. West Indian Dwayne Smith scored 32 from 21, before Dinesh Karthik turned a potentially tricky finish to the match into an easy one with a half-century off 39 balls.
Dwayne Bravo hit the winning runs with three balls to spare.
Brief scores
Gujarat Lions 182 for 4 in 20 overs (D Karthik 50*, B McCullum 42) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 180 for 2 in 19.3 overs (V Kohli 100*, L Rahul 51*) by six wickets