09 May,2011 06:46 AM IST | | Sai Mohan
West Indies batsman Chris Gayle played another explosive knock to power Royal Challengers Bangalore to an authoritative nine-wicket victory over Kochi Tuskers Kerala at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here yesterday.
After combining with skipper Daniel Vettori to reduce the visitors to 125 for nine, Gayle blasted five sixes in his 16-ball knock of 44, which included a stunning 36 runs in a seven-ball over. Bangalore achieved the target with 7.5 overs to spare, boosting their net run rate and thus climbing to third place in the points table.
RCB's Chris Gayle plays a lofted shot during his knock against Kochi
Tuskers Kerala in an IPL match at M Chinnaswamy Stadium yesterday.
Pic/AFP
Tillakaratne Dilshan, who played his last IPL game before leaving for the England tour, remained unbeaten on 52 ufffd a knock studded with eight boundaries and a six.
Vettori admitted that his side would face a tough challenge in finding a new opening partner for Gayle.
"Yes, that partnership (of Dilshan and Gayle) certainly enabled us to win these last five games," the RCB skipper said after the game.
"When you look at the foreign players, there are Luke Pomersbach and Rilee Rousouw, or look at a guy like Saurabh Tiwary to come up the order. We have got a couple of options and we have to make a decision pretty quickly."
Vettori said he was thankful that Gayle, who now has 328 runs from just five games, was not in the opposition rank. "It's all him out there. I just sit back and enjoy, I know it's more enjoyable because he is on my side. But I think that's why people love T20 cricket.
"What he did tonight, 37 runs off one over, I am sure it's been never done before. It's amazing," he said.
Gayle smashed four sixes, including one off a free-hit, and three fours off left-arm seamer Prasanth Parameswaran.
Kochi skipper Mahela Jayawardene came to the support of his beleaguered bowler.u00a0 "This is T20 cricket and such things happen. More experienced bowlers than him (Parameswaran) have been hit out of the attack," he said. "The other day he dismissed Virender Sehwag, but today he couldn't repeat that."
