Hoping to stay alive in the tournament, RCB faced Kings XI Punjab in the 39th match of Vivo IPL 2016. Placed at 6th in the points table, there are only 2 teams below them in the points table i.e. Rising Pune Supergiants and Kings XI Punjab.
| Royal Challengers Bangalore | vs | Kings XI Punjab |
| Date | 09 May 2016 | |
| Venue | Punjab Cricket Association Stadium | |
| 175/6 (20) | 174/4 (20) | |
Royal Challengers won by 1 run |
||
The toss was won by the Kings XI Punjab, they made two changes to their side – Maxwell and Gurkeerat Singh OUT, Behardein and Anureet Singh IN. The RCB made one change of getting Iqbal Abdulla IN for Parvez Rasool.
The trend so far for RCB has been of getting a solid opening stand which establishes a strong platform for the middle order. Surprisingly, RCB has this season made the bold move of leaving out Chris Gayle, someone who has to his name a 175* in IPL and has time and again performed exceptionally but the replacement of KL Rahul has worked wonders for RCB – with the duo of Kohli and Rahul charmingly getting side to quick starts.
An opening stand of 63 in the first 7 overs meant that RCB were in a strong position but the Kings XI found some respite in form of 2 quick wickets – with Cariappa getting the wickets of both the openers in the 7th over.
Rahul was dismissed for 42 while Kohli went after hitting a run a ball 20. Following the two quick wickets was a perfectly paced innings from Villiers who has somewhat played in the shadow of Kohli in this season – Villiers has been unable to play innings surpassing the class of Kohli, thus RCB are starting to be called a “one man team”.
Villiers made 64 in 35 balls which guided RCB to 175 in 20 overs. Sachin baby’s 33 came in 29 balls – a little on the slower side and not the usual finish that you’d expect to an innings which perhaps held back RCB’s score a bit – had Baby perhaps surpassed 40, RCB could have reached 190.
In their chase, the Kings XI had the same story to tell as they have all this season – the heavy dependence on one or two players and a miserably out of sync performance from the rest of the team; the unit collectively just hasn’t clicked.
Amla’s 21 in 20, Saha’s 16 in 13, Miller’s first ball duck – 3 players and yet nothing constructive to show in terms of runs scored.
Vijay’s 89 in 57 was perhaps the only positive highlight for Kings XI followed by Stoinis’ 34 in 22. Vijay was dismissed in the 17th over with Kings XI still requiring 34 in the last 3.
Stoinis’ aggressive strokes in the last few overs got Punjab closer to the target but Watson’s disciplined 19th over left Punjab with 17 to make in the last over from Jordan. A six and a four from Stoinis on the 2nd and 3rd ball of the over raised the hopes within the Punjab fans to win the match but Stoinis missed 2 full tosses and was unable to put the deliveries away for a boundary – Kings XI Punjab lost by 1 run, so close and yet so far.
This is the 3rd time that Kings XI Punjab have been involved in a match ending with 1 run margin – they’ve won 2 and this is the first time that they’ve lost.
RCB keep their hopes of making the knockouts alive.
RCB vs KIXP Video Recap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK7t1Py3Hu4
[button color=”” size=”large” type=”” target=”” link=”https://sports.beebulletin.com/tag/ipl-2016-match-highlights/”%5DTap Here for all IPL 2016 Match Highlights[/button]
