Virat Kohli smashed a 58-ball 99 before Jaydev Unadkat picked up a five-wicket haul to guide Royal Challengers Bangalore to a narrow four-run win over Delhi Daredevils here today, and enhance their chances of qualifying for the play-offs of the Pepsi Indian Premier League.
Delhi Daredevils came tantalisingly close to beating Royal Challengers Bangalore, but fell four runs short at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium on Friday.
Chasing 184 to win, Irfan Pathan almost scripted an improbable win with a late blitz that saw Delhi score 46 runs from the last three overs to end with 179 for seven.
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Needing 51 runs from the last 18 balls, Pathan went berserk hitting two boundaries and two sixes and stitched a 44-run partnership with Morne Morkel.u00a0Pathan scored 23 off 11 balls and Morkel 19 off 10 deliveries
Jaydev Unadkat claimed Morkel's wicket to tilt the game in RCB's favour. But even then it was a close game, with Unadkat, who had figures of 4 for 11 before the final over, conceded eight from the first two balls. But a single off the next and then castling Morkel meant Delhi were the losing side.
Unadkat claimed five of the seven Delhi wickets to fall on the night, including the big ones of Virender Sehwag, Mahela Jayawardene and Unmukt Chand. His figures of five for 25 earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.
The Daredevils started well but had lost their big three - Mahela Jayawardene (19), Virender Sehwag (18) and Warner (4) - by the seventh over which put the brakes. However, Unmukt Chand (41) and Ben Rohrer (32) tried to steady their ship by putting together 58 runs for the fourth wicket.
However, Rohrer’s wicket led to a mini collapse as the hosts lost three wickets in a span of 13 runs.
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Virat Kohli plays a shot on the off-side during his innings of 99.u00a0
Earlier, Kohli smashed a 58-ball 99 to power Royal Challengers Bangalore to 183 for four.
Kohli, who got two reprieves during his sensational knock, along with A B de Villiers put on 94 runs off just 40 balls for the fourth wicket to set the hosts a daunting target.
An innovative De Villiers used the long handle to great effect and played a 17-ball 32-run cameo to further the visitors' cause.
Sent into bat, RCB did not have the best of starts as they lost their openers, which included the dangerous Chris Gayle, inside the fifth over.
Gayle departed without inflicting much damage as he played on to his stumps an Irfan Pathan delivery in the second over.
Cheteshwar Pujara scored a run-a-ball 17 with the help of three boundaries before he was cleaned up by Siddharth Kaul.
Kohli's first life came in the third over when he edged a Morne Morkel delivery to Kedar Jadhav behind the stumps, which, much to the dismay of home fans, turned out to be a no ball. The RCB captain was got another life when Virender Sehwag dropped him inside the circle off Kaul.u00a0
Kohli and Moises Henriques thereafter added 57 runs off 50 balls for the third wicket to stabilize RCB's innings.
Henriques scored 26 off 22 balls with the help of three boundaries before Shahbaz Nadeem had the batsman, caught off his own bowling.
Kohli and de Villiers than upped the ante and stitched a 50-run partnership in just 27 balls.
De Villiers started the onslaught by clobbering Morkel for a huge six over the fine-leg boundary and then Kohli smashed the bowler for two fours to pick up 18 runs off the 17th over.
If that was not enough, de Villiers and Kohli smothered Umesh Yadav to all parts of the ground, which included three huge sixes and one four to score 24 runs off the next over.
Yadav was once again at the receiving end of Kohli's onslaught as the RCB skipper hit the pacer for two fours and as many sixes to pick up 23 runs off the final over before he was run out in the last ball of the innings.
Kohli and de Villiers sent the Daredevils bowlers on a leather-hunt, scoring a whopping 77 runs off the last four overs.
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