Superb KXIP brush off RCB in match 31
KXIP added another win to their incredible streak in Pepsi IPL 2014 by defeating RCB by 32 runs in match 31. RCB had won the toss and asked KXIP to take first strike. Virender Sehwag and Mandeep Singh commenced things fluently to echo that KXIP were around. The team’s 50 came in the sixth over. Mandeep Singh on 21 was the first KXIP wicket to fall off the bowling off Harshal Patel with the KXIP score on 60. Glenn Maxwell announced his arrival with a boundary.
It was the arrival of Yuzvendra Chahal of RCB that brought his team back into the game. First Yuzvendra Chahal claimed the precious wicket of Sehwag on 30 and then the prize wicket of Maxwell who could only manage 25 in 11 balls when Mitchell Starc caught him on the mid-wicket fence. KXIP skipper George Bailey walked in with the scorecard reading 93 for three in 8.5 overs. The KXIP 100 then came up in the 10th over. Bailey left on 1 soon on a beauty from Albie Morkel. Miller reminded the crowd that he was around and smashed all over the ground to get 66 in 29 balls including 8 fours and three sixes. Wriddhiman Saha scored 26 runs off a Harshal Patel over, the 16th of the innings. KXIP posted a mountainous 198 for eight. Then it was KXIP bowler Sandeep Sharma’s figures of 4-0-25-3 that defeated the solid RCB batting line-up to restrict them to 166 for nine to claim the man of the match award.
The RCB innings began with Parthiv Patel and Chris Gayle. Gayle left on 4 dismissed by Sandeep Sharma in the third over. And off the very next delivery, the KXIP pacer got rid of Virat Kohli on a duck leaving RCB in tatters on eight for two in 2.2 overs. Sachin Rana and Parthiv Patel struck out in the middle. But Sandeep Sharma struck again to get rid of Patel in the sixth over. Rana was (18) bowled by Akshar Patel in the seventh over. Then the entire responsibility of ensuring a win for their team came up on Yuvraj Singh and de Villers. But the experienced duo could only add 11 runs off 16 balls, before KXIP struck again.
Shivam Sharma of KXIP first had Yuvraj Singh on 3 caught in the slips and then had Morkel on 16 leaving RCB struggling at 76 for six in 11.1 overs. De Villiers had not given up as his team crumbled around him. He made an outstanding 53 including a flurry of sixes and fours but was scalped by in form KXIP bowler Lakshmipathy Balaji. Johnson finished off things in style for KXIP by claiming the eighth RCB wicket of Harshal Patel in the 17th over to make the outcome of the match quite predictable. The last to go for RCB was Starc on 29 in the 20th over off the bowling of Balaji with 166 for nine on the scoreboard to lose the contest to KXIP by 32 runs.
