Virat Kohli and his South African partner AB de Villiers once again helped Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in keeping their hopes alive for  the IPL 2016 playoffs and played a brilliant innings to chased down the challenging score of 183 made by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Monday.

Even though the duo made a blistering 115- stand for the 2nd wicket, it was the West Indian aggressive batsmen Chris Gayle (49 0ff 31) who took the charge and damaged the KKR attack badly. He started with hitting two consecutive huge maximums to his national team partner Andre Russel and built a platform for Kohli and de Villiers to reach the target in time. He played an outstanding innings by scoring five fours and four sixes before got out to Sunil Narine at team total of 71.

After the Gayle-storm ended, it was the time for AB de Villiers and the skipper Virat Kohli to hunt down the KKR bowlers, the way they did against the Gujarat Lions. Virat Kohli (75 off 51) and AB de Villers (59 off 31) played unbeaten knocks and helped RCB to sail to the shore and finishing it in style.

However, if the KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir held on to a catch of Virat Kohli, when the consistent performer was on 32, the things might have been different.

Earlier, the KKR batsmen just could not capitalize on the platform created by their captain Gautam Gambhir (51 of 34) and Manish Pandey (50 off 35) and could only score 183 with the help of Andre Russel’s unbeaten knock of 39 off 19 deliveries at the end of the innings.

With the big win by 9-wickets, RCB has kept their challenge in the tournament whereas KKR will now look forward to win both their matches and to qualify for the playoffs.

Scorecard:

Kolkata Knight Riders Innings

Royal Challengers Bangalore Innings

By Prajak K.