Match summary
Opener Chris Lynn anchored his innings to perfection as Kolkata Knight Riders were back to winning ways with a comfortable six-wicket win against Royal Challengers Bangalore in an IPL encounter on Sunday.
Chasing a sub-par target of 176, KKR reached the target in 19.1 overs with Lynn scoring an unbeaten 62 off 52 balls with seven fours and a six.
KKR captain Dinesh Karthik relishing his new found role as a finisher, played his part with a 10-ball-23 to make it easy in the end. KKR with eight points remained in fourth place while Virat Kohli's men slumped further with their fifth defeat in seven games.
At the onset of the chase, Lynn and Sunil Narine (27 off 19 balls) provided a solid if not spectacular foundation adding 51 runs in the Powerplat overs.
Lynn's straight six off a Umesh Yadav yorker was exhilarating but he was lucky to get reprieve when he miscued a lofted shot trying to hit Yuzvendra Chahal against the turn but Murugan Ashwin misjudged it completely.
Yadav was also hit for a six over long-off by Narine off the very first delivery of his spell. There were a few streaky boundaries hit off Tim Southee as KKR were well above Duckworth-Lewis par-score at 55 for no loss when play was temporarily halted at 6.3 overs.
Once the match resumed, Narine was holed out at the long-off boundary off Murugan's bowling.
Robin Uthappa (36 off 21 balls) blazed his way with three fours and three sixes before being caught in deep off Murugan's bowling.
Lynn however kept playing the sweep shot against spinners with varying degree of success as RCB clawed their way back into the match during the middle overs.
But Lynn kept his composure in company of skipper Dinesh Karthik to win it for KKR.
Earlier, skipper Kohli was once again the stand-out performer with an unbeaten 44-ball-68 as Royal Challengers Bengaluru managed a below-par 175 for 4 in 20 overs.
It was a patchy batting performance from the home team and Indian captain's fourth half-century of the season ensured that they had some kind of a total on board.
Kohli's innings comprised of five fours and three sixes while Brendon McCullum contributed 38 off 28 balls.
Two of the three sixes struck by Kohli were pure delight. Both were hit off Andre Russell. With minimum backlift, Kohli whipped one on the blockhole into the long-on stands while the other was a flick into the deep mid-wicket stand.
The final six came off the last delivery of the innings as he dispatched one into the mid-wicket stands.
RCB's first 10 overs wasn't as productive as they lost three wickets for 75 runs. It was primarily due to Kohli that they managed another 100 runs in the back-10.
The slow start by RCB was one of the reasons for not getting the par-score of 200 as the Powerplay overs produced only 40 runs.
Put into bat, openers McCullum and Quinton de Kock (29 off 27 balls) put on 67 runs but consumed eight overs in the process.
The South African 'keeper-batsman was scalped by Kuldeep Yadav with his first ball after the strategic break. De Kock's inside out lofted shot was pouched in the deep by Shubman Gill.
RCB lost next two back-to-back wickets in the 10th over when McCullum was caught off Russell and Manan Vohra (0) made a hash of a low full-toss.
Mandeep Singh (19) became Russell's third victim. A slower delivery on off-stump, Mandeep swung and did not get the elevation he needed and Shivam Mavi took the catch at deep midwicket.
Earlier, Sunil Naraine was greeted by de Kock with two consecutive boundaries of his first over. First he swept one towards short fine leg and then a cross-batted shot towards deep midwicket fence. De Kock also hit a six off Mitchell Johnson's first over.
RCB batting summary
Skipper Virat Kohli was once again the stand-out performer with an unbeaten 44-ball-68 as Royal Challengers Bengaluru managed a below-par 175 for 4 against Kolkata Knight Riders in an IPL encounter, here tonight.
It was a patchy batting performance from the home team and Indian captain's fourth half-century of the season ensured that they had some kind of a total on board.
Kohli's innings comprised of five fours and three sixes while Brendon McCullum contributed 38 off 28 balls.
Two of the three sixes struck by Kohli were pure delight. Both were hit off Andre Russell. With minimum backlift, Kohli whipped one on the blockhole into the long-on stands while the other was a flick into the deep mid-wicket stand.
The final six came off the last delivery of the innings as he dispatched one into the mid-wicket stands.
RCB's first 10 overs wasn't as productive as they lost three wickets for 75 runs. It was primarily due to Kohli that they managed another 100 runs in the back-10.
The slow start by RCB was one of the reasons for not getting the par-score of 200 as the Powerplay overs produced only 40 runs.
Put into bat, openers McCullum and Quinton de Kock (29 off 27 balls) put on 67 runs but consumed eight overs in the process.
The South African 'keeper-batsman was scalped by Kuldeep Yadav with his first ball after the strategic break. De Kock's inside out lofted shot was pouched in the deep by Shubman Gill.
RCB lost next two back-to-back wickets in the 10th over when McCullum was caught off Russell and Manan Vohra (0) made a hash of a low full-toss.
Mandeep Singh (19) became Russell's third victim. A slower delivery on off-stump, Mandeep swung and did not get the elevation he needed and Shivam Mavi took the catch at deep midwicket.
Earlier, Sunil Naraine was greeted by de Kock with two consecutive boundaries of his first over. First he swept one towards short fine leg and then a cross-batted shot towards deep midwicket fence. De Kock also hit a six off Mitchell Johnson's first over.
Toss and Team news
Dinesh Karthik has won the toss and opted to bowl first against royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore.
RCB Playing XI: Quinton de Kock, Virat Kohli, Manan Vohra, Brendon McCullum, Mandeep Singh, Colin de Grandhomme, Murugan Ashwin, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
Three changes for RCB in today’s match. AB de Villiers has been RULED OUT because of a viral fever. Tim Southee replaceshim as the fourth foreign player. Murugan Ashwin replaces Washington Sundar and Manan Vohra comes in for Pawan Negi.
KKR Playing XI: Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Shivam Mavi, Piyush Chawla, Mitchell Johnson, Kuldeep Yadav
Kolkata are playing with the same squad.
Preview
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will look to get their campaign back on track when they face off here on Sunday as the Indian Premier League (IPL) reaches the midway mark.
While KKR are fourth with six points from seven games but coming off two successive defeats, RCB are at the sixth spot with four points from six games.
KKR's last two games saw them lose to Kings XI Punjab (by nine wickets via D/L method) at home and Delhi Daredevils (by 55 runs) at the national capital.
In Delhi, they allowed the Daredevils to build this IPL season's highest total of 219/4. While chasing they were restricted to 164/9, having lost four wickets for just 46 runs in the powerplay.
KKR will be hoping for an all-round game, since their bolwers and batsmen have not clicked in unison in the past two games.
Dinesh Karthik has led from the front in the batting department with the likes of his deputy Robin Uthappa, Nitish Rana, Chris Lynn and all-rounder Andre Russell firing in unison.
KKR'r concern will be their bowling, which has failed to defend even big totals. The spin trio of Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla and Sunil Narine and pacers Shivam Mavi and Tom Curran were plundered by Shreyas Iyer and Prithvi Shaw of Delhi in their last game and will look to bounce back strongly although it will be very difficult at the batting-friendly M. Chinnaswamy wicket.
On the other hand, RCB, led by Virat Kohli, have never got any momentum. Their two wins have comes against Kings XI (April 13) and Delhi (April 21). In their last match, RCB failed to defend their total of 205/8 against Chennai Super Kings, who rode on half-centuries from Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ambati Rayudu to win by five wickets.
That loss continued to show RCB's weakness in their bowling department. The spin duo of Yuzuvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar and seamers Chris Woakes and Umesh Yadav have done well in parts and need to bring their best in order to avoid another defeat which could endanger their playoff chances.
In batting, RCB have a top-heavy line-up, with the presence of AB De Villiers (280 runs), Virat Kohli (249 runs) enough to hurt any bowling line-up. Mandeep Singh (171), Quinton de Kock (165) also need to contribute more.
Bangalore however, have failed to find the perfect opening partnerships, which could be a major cause of concern.
Squads:
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (Captain), Quinton de Kock(WK), Brendon McCullum, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Kulwant Khejroliya, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Manan Vohra, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Mohammed Siraj, Corey Anderson, Parthiv Patel, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Tim Southee.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (Captain/WK), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishank Jaggi, Nitish Rana, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Tom Curran, Prasidh Krishna.