Jaipur, April 15: Chasing a paltry total of 131 runs for victory, Royal Challengers Bangalore came up with a comprehensive 5 wickets win over Rajasthan Royals and moved closer to secure a semis berth by reaching to second position in IPL points table.
Foundation of the win was once again set by scintillating innings of Kevin Pietersen who hit Rajasthan bowlers with disdain as Bangalore romped home with 4.2 overs to spare.
Pietersen amassed 62 runs of just 29 balls and made mockery of Warne’s attempt to carve out a win after their batsmen failed to provide the cushion.
It was an easy chase for Bangalore all along as the asking rate was always under control and with wickets in hand Bangalore never looked like giving away the match.
Robin Uthappa (26) also played a cameo of sort to seal the fate of the match in Bangalore’s favour.
Earlier, riding on disciplined bowling by their pace bowlers, Royal Challengers Bangalore restricted Rajasthan Royals to a modest 130 for six in their crucial IPL match here today.
Such was the control and domination of the Bangalore bowlers that only 14 fours were scored and the only six which was hit in the entire innings came off the second last ball.
Abhishek Raut was the top scorer for the hosts with his unbeaten 32 and it was his undefeated sixth-wicket partnership of 58 runs with Adam Voges (28) that helped the side set at- least a modest target.
Drafted into the playing XI today, Pankaj Singh (2/27) was the most successful bowler with two wickets while Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis and R Vinay Kumar took one wicket each.
Raut and Voges joined forces when their team was tottering at 72 for six and did extremely well to give something to bowlers to fight for.
The hosts did not get the start they would have hoped for after winning the toss as they lost wickets in a hurry.
In a space of seven balls both the openers — Naman Ojha (7) and Michael Lumb (9) — and Amit Paunikar (0) were cooling their heels back in the dug out.
The following batsmen found the scoring tough against a disciplined Bangalore attack on a slow pitch as only four boundaries came in the first six overs.
Shane Watson tried to break shackles by hitting rival skipper Anil Kumble for two fours but soon he too was back with his teammates as his attempted pull of Kallis went straight to Kevin Pietersen at square leg.
Watson took 25 balls to score his 22 which had three fours.
Abhishek Jhunjunwala (13) followed him, becoming second victim of Pankaj as his attempted big shot landed in hands of Kumble at mid-off.
Yusuf Pathan (11) though did not let Pankaj celebrate much and hit him for two consecutive fours.
Pathan though could not rescue his side from the dismal start as Steyn uprooted his off-stump to seal his fate.
Teams:
Bangalore Royal Challengers: Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa(w), Rahul Dravid, Kevin Pietersen, Ross Taylor, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, Dale Steyn, Anil Kumble(c), Vinay Kumar, KP Appanna, Praveen Kumar, Eoin Morgan, Roelof van der Merwe, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mark Boucher, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Balachandra Akhil, Dillon du Preez, Shreevats Goswami, Steven Smith, Cameron White, Sridharan Sriram
Rajasthan Royals: Michael Lumb, Naman Ojha(w), Faiz Fazal, Yusuf Pathan, Shane Watson, Abhishek Jhunjunwala, Adam Voges, Abhishek Raut, Aditya Dole, Shane Warne(c), Siddharth Trivedi, Swapnil Asnodkar, Munaf Patel, Amit Singh, Shaun Tait, Amit Gajanan Paunikar, Johan Botha, Kamran Khan, Morne Morkel, Sumit Narwal, Syed Quadri, Shrikant Wagh, Mahesh Rawat, Paras Dogra, Amit Uniyal, Aaron Finch
—–Agencies