A fantastic innings by Virat Kohli and later joined by Karthik-Lomror took Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to their first victory in this season. They defeated Punjab Kings (PBKS) by 4 wickets.
Challengers lost their first match which was the season’s opener against CSK by 6 wickets while Kings registered a narrow victory against DC by 4 wickets.
Bengaluru skipper Faf du Plessis after winning the toss goes for bowling.
Punjab skipper Shikhar Dhawan (45 runs) topped the list in terms of individual run scorer for the team. In his knock he played 37 balls and hit 5 fours and a six. Then suddenly the team lost 4 wickets in just 98 runs. From there a partnership made 52 runs for the 5th wicket between Sam Curran (23 runs) and Jitesh Sharma (27 runs).
Shashank Singh’s (21 runs not out) destructive batting in the death overs in which he hit 2 sixes took the team score 176 runs in 20 overs. They lost 6 wickets.
Mohammad Siraj and Glenn Maxwell got 2 wickets each. Yash Dayal and Alzarri Joseph got 1 wicket each.
During the chase, Royals struggled as only Virat Kohli (77 runs) showed some bravery against the bowlers. None of the other batters in the top order supported him.
But then again Dinesh Karthik (28 runs not out) and impact player Mahipal Lomror (17 runs not out) got 48 runs for the 7th wicket and took the team to a great victory. Karthik played 10 balls and hit 3 fours and 2 sixes whereas Lomror played 8 balls and hit 2 fours and a six. In the end, these two chased down the target in 19.2 overs and scored 178 runs by losing 6 wickets.
Kagiso Rabada and Harpreet Brar got 2 wickets each. Sam Curran and Harshal Patel got 1 wicket each.