Tim David belted eight sixes in a blistering 70 not out to fire Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their second win of the IPL season, hammering Chennai Super Kings by 43 runs on Sunday.
David’s 25-ball blitz steered defending champions Bengaluru to 250-3, the highest total in this season’s tournament, after the hosts were put in to bat first at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Bengaluru bowled Chennai out for 207 in 19.4 overs to condemn the five-time IPL winners to a third defeat in as many matches.
Seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar took three wickets for Bengaluru. Jacob Duffy, Abhinandan Singh and Krunal Pandya claimed two each.
But Australia’s David ruled with his power hitting and one of his sixes off England’s Jamie Overton went over the roof of the stadium.
“It doesn’t always happen that way,” said player of the match David.
“You know, skipper Rajat (Patidar) was absolutely smoking and I was taking balls off him. So to be able to get us to a score and obviously put a lot of pressure on the opposition, it was super fun.”
Bengaluru top the 10-team IPL table with a better run-rate than Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings. All four sides have won their opening two matches.
Bengaluru, who won their first IPL title in 18 attempts last year, started strong after Virat Kohli hit an 18-ball 28, and the rest of the batting kept up the pace and then accelerated.
Kohli’s fellow opener Phil Salt made 46 and Devdutt Padikkal reached 50 before Patidar, who finished unbeaten on 48, and David tore into the Chennai attack.
David launched a brutal assault at the back end of the Bengaluru innings and whacked Overton for four sixes and a four in a 30-run 19th over.
David and Patidar put on 99 runs in 36 balls as Bengaluru plundered 97 runs from the final five overs.
Chennai lost three early wickets, including skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad for seven, to immediately fall behind in the chase.
Sarfaraz Khan’s 25-ball 50 and good knocks from Prashant Veer (43) and Overton (37) added some spark to an otherwise disappointing Chennai show.
“Great fight by Sarfaraz, Prashant Veer, Jamie Overton, even to some extent Shivam Dube,” said Gaikwad. “So I think, maybe I could have, contributed more top of the order. You never know, we could have chased it down.”
In the first of the two matches on Sunday, pace bowler Mohammed Shami returned figures of 2-9 to help Lucknow Super Giants beat Hyderabad by five wickets for their first win of this edition.
Skipper Rishabh Pant hit an unbeaten 68 as Lucknow chased down 157 for victory with one ball to spare.
Source: Khaleej Times