PHENOMENAL hitting by Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Saurabh Tiwary took Royal Challengers Bangalore to a six- wicket win over Pune Warriors off the last ball at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Tuesday.
Saurabh Tiwary ( 36 no, 23 balls, 1×4, 2×6) smashed Ashish Nehra for a straight six when RCB needed three off the last ball to chase down 183.
Not to forget AB de Villiers ( 33 no, 14 balls, 2×4, 3×6), who hit Nehra for two innovative sixes — a reverse sweep and a scoop over deep fine- leg as the home team made 21 runs in six balls.
It was Gayle who hit eight towering sixes en route his 48- ball 81 and laid the foundation for the chase.
Nehra who gave away 54 runs in four overs was hit for as many as half a dozen sixes. He completely undid the good work done by Ashoke Dinda, who gave away only six runs in the penultimate over.
At halfway stage of their chase, RCB were 63 for two. It was only after Virat Kohli was dismissed by Angelo Mathews that Gayle decided to play his signature game.
Leg- spinner Rahul Sharma bore the brunt as Gayle hit five consecutive sixes with 31 runs coming off an over.
Gayle hit Nehra for his eighth six but the veteran seamer bowled a blockhole delivery that cleaned him up.
Earlier, local boy Robin Uthappa’s belligerent knock of 69, along with useful contributions from Jesse Ryder and Marlon Samuels helped Pune Warriors India post a commendable 182 for six after opting to bat first on a flat deck.
Ryder and Uthappa got off to a cracking start adding 63 runs for the first wicket in only seven overs.
Harshal Patel provided the breakthrough when the Kiwi opener tried to pull him over backward square- leg only to be caught by Mayank Agarwal at the boundary.
R Vinay Kumar picked up an woefully out- of- form Sourav Ganguly whose slash was caught at sweeper cover by Agarwal and in the next over Daniel Vettori sent back Uthappa.