Virat Kohli scored his second consecutive half-century in the IPL for the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Friday. Despite his efforts, the Kolkata Knight Riders still won by seven wickets.
Kolkata successfully chased down the home team's score of 182-6, with skipper Shreyas Iyer calmly hitting a six off Mayank Dagar to secure the win with 19 balls remaining.
The chase began strongly with Phil Salt (30) and all-rounder Sunil Narine (47) putting on 86 runs for the visitors. Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis praised their performance:
“I just thought they were excellent. Really broke the game in the first six overs.”
Narine hit five sixes in his 22-ball innings before Dagar bowled him in the seventh over, with Salt following in the next over when he was caught at deep square leg.
Venkatesh Iyer made 50 to maintain the momentum before he was caught by Kohli, while Shreyas saw out the innings with his 39
Kohli scored 83 runs and reached his half-century in just 36 balls. He acknowledged the enthusiastic home crowd with a thumbs-up. His performance made him the leading run-scorer of the tournament since it began last week.
Bengaluru's innings, however, was a one-man show. Du Plessis lacked capable partners.
Du Plessis was dismissed for eight runs at the end of the second over when he played a confusing delivery from Harshit Rana straight into the hands of Mitchell Starc.
Cameron Green scored 33 runs but was dismissed after missing a fast delivery from Andre Russell that hit his back pad and went on to hit the stumps.
Glenn Maxwell survived two dropped catches by Ramandeep Singh and Narine in consecutive overs.
Narine got his revenge soon after by bowling a bouncer to Maxwell, who hit it to deep point and was caught by Rinku Singh, who celebrated by kissing the ball.
Maxwell scored 28 runs from 19 balls. Kohli survived a close run-out call when a replay showed his sliding dive had put him over the crease in time.
Dinesh Karthik scored 20 runs before being run out by Salt on the last ball. Andre Russell was the pick of the Kolkata bowlers, taking 2-29.