The 42nd match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab saw a special inning from a special batsman by the name of AB de Villiers. KXIP won the toss and chose to bowl first in a match that they need to win to stay in playoffs contention.
RCB batting was dealt a blow as Kohli was dismissed by Shami for 13, while Ali made 4 and Nath made 3. Parthiv Patel made 43 in 24 balls. RCB were looking good for a score of around 180 at one time, but KXIP pulled things back a lot. However, in the last three overs, KXIP bowling completely lost the course, giving away 64 runs. Ankit Rajpoot gave 46 runs, Hardus Viljoen went for 51 runs and Shami went for 53 runs in their respective quotas.
This was only possible due to Stoinis’ 46* in 34 balls and an amazing all-around batting by AB de Villiers, who made 82* in 44 balls with 7 sixes and 3 fours. One of his sixes was a one-handed, no-look shot, which went on the roof of M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Twitter went crazy, as RCB posted 202 runs on the board thanks to De Villiers and showered them with praises.
Here are some tweets:
