IPL-11: Bangalore open account of win, Punjab win

On the best innings of Abraham De Villiers (57) and Quinton de Kock (45), Royal Challengers Bangalore opened their account of victory in the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday.

Bangalore: Royal Challengers Bangalore have opened their account of victory in the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday, on the brilliance of AB de Villiers (57) and Quinton de Kock (45). RCB beat Kings XI Punjab by four wickets in an interesting match.

Punjab, batting first, had set a target of 156 in front of hosts Bangalore, which RCB got after remaining three balls and lost six wickets.

De Villiers played his half-century in 40 balls with the help of two fours and four sixes. Mandeep Singh gave his best in this. Mandeep, who kept one side, scored 22 runs in 19 balls with the help of a four.

Akshar Patel denied RCB a good start. He already caught the dangerous Brendon McCullum at Mujib ur Rahim on the second ball of the over. McCullum, who was ruled out on the total score of one run, could not even open the account.

Virat Kohli scored 21 runs in 16 balls with the help of four fours but on the total score of 33, he got bowled on the best bowler of Rahman. At the other end, D-Cock was continuously running the score board. De Kock was five runs away from the half-century, then Punjab captain Ravichandran Ashwin bowled them. He faced 34 balls in his innings and put a six against seven squares.

Young batsman Sarfaraz once again disappointed. He was caught by Ashwin on the slip in the hands of Karun Nair. Standing at the other end was the trouble of Punjab's De Villiers.

The match was becoming interesting and in the meantime, De Villiers bowled two glorious sixes in the 17th over, thrown by Mujib. Mandeep hit a boundary in this over. Mujib got a total of 19 runs in this over De Villiers, however, returned to the pavilion on the first ball of the 19th over. In this over, Mandeep also got run out.

Washington beautiful (9 not out) gave victory to his team in the last over by two fours.

Earlier, the captain of the RCB Kohli Kohli gave an invitation to bat to win the toss. Punjab got a good start, but they could not take advantage of it and got all out in only 19.5 overs at just 155 runs.

Umesh Yadav, the fast bowler of the hosts who took three wickets in Punjab to stop this score, has been an important contributor. He sent the pavilion to the three batsmen of the team within four runs and pushed him back to the backfoot so that he could never return.

Apart from Umesh for Bangalore, Chris Woakes, Kulwant Khazorolia, Sunder get two wickets each. Yuveswendra Chahal got a breakthrough.

Mayank Agarwal (15) and Lokesh Rahul had added 32 runs for the first wicket in 3.1 overs. Punjab's innings shattered after three wickets fell in four runs.

The first wicket fell in the form of Mayank, Umesh Yadav caught behind the wicket by De Kock. Aaron Finch Umesh was bowled on the ball on the next ball. Yuvraj Singh hit just one four in four balls and got bowled on Umesh's bowling.

Rahul stood on the other shoe. He got the support of Karun Nair. Both gave the team a score of 94 Rahul was running fast, Nayar was giving them a strike. The end of the 58-run partnership for the fourth wicket between the two was beautiful by making Rahul bold. Rahul scored 47 runs in 30 balls with the help of two fours and four sixes.

After six runs, Nayar was kejorolia his victim. Marcus Steinas (11) was not allowed to stay in the Washington Finals and pavilion on total score of 110. Khazorolia made Akshar Patel (2) his second victim at the total score of 122.

Ashwin finally scored 33 runs in 21 balls and brought Punjab to over 150 runs. He hit the ball on a total score of 153. Punjab lost their last wicket as Mujib ur Rahim Rahman could not even open the account.