IPL: AB de Villiers smashes 57 to help RCB beat Kings

Both the teams have won a game each, they won their “homecoming” game. In contrast, the other Kings XI bowlers went at 7.50 or less per over. Despite a late hiccup, Bangalore chased down their target of 156 with three balls to spare. Further adds he felt the wicket would play better in the last game but it was a little slow.

But having said that, there were two performances that stood out from the rest.

Kings XI’s teenager Mujeeb (1-29) also shone, bowling Kohli through the gate with a googly, while De Kock and Sarfaraz fell to Ashwin’s spin – De Kock bowled and Sarfaraz, the third player in the match to depart first ball, clipping to slip. This contest will surely be a tug of war between both the team and will be looking forward to continue their winning streak.

During the first inning KXIP started good with once again K L Rahul scoring a handsome knock of 47 runs off 30 balls but Punjab couldn’t really get a momentum as RCB continued taking wickets at regular intervals. Moeen Ali is unlikely to get a game for the time being. It’s only a matter of the top-order putting on the sort of show they’re capable of to bring the RCB faithful to their feeton Sunday, and find a sync between their batting and bowling performance – something they dearly missed a year ago – going ahead.

Their bowling, that included the usually economical Washington Sundar, experienced a rare bad day but the management will be keen to give him another go, although they may be tempted to swap him for Pawan Negi.

Their batting looks strong, though. The likes of Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and of course captain Ajinkya Rahane speaks volumes about the talent the team possesses. It didn’t help that D’Arcy Short, twice run out after single-digit scores, hasn’t lived up to his Big Bash League billing either. The big question for them is: Will they find a spot for Jofra Archer?

Bangalore are always too short. He put on 59 runs for the fifth wicket with Mandeep Singh, who scored a valuable 22. There are others who are struggling particularly the Mumbai Indians who have sadly lost all the three of the games played by them. Since this line-up has a lot of people batting out of order, it is vital that Buttler did justice to his role down the order where he seemed comfortable.

Umesh Yadav has now won seven man of the match awards in the IPL – the most by a specialist fast bowler in the tournament. But anyone who has followed his career closely knows that it tends to be a little bit feast or starvation with him and he doesn’t often follow up a big performance like that with another one. Rahul took apart Chris Woakes in the opening over.