IPL 6: Gilchrist, Mahmood help Kings XI Punjab thrash Royal Challengers Bangalore

Skipper Adam Gilchrist finally led from the front with a dazzling unbeaten 85 to guide Kings XI Punjab to a comfortable sevenwicket victory over Royal Challengers in a Pepsi Indian Premier League match at u00a0M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday Chasing a stiff target of 175 Gilchrist blazed his way to a 54ball 85 which had 10 fours and three huge sixes as his team romped home with 11 balls to spare thereby keeping doors of the playoffs open Kings XI with 12 points from 14 matches are now in sixth position courtesy a better net runrate than defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders who are also on 12 points Adam Gilchrist led from the front with a dazzling unbeaten 85 to guide Kings XI Punjab to a comfortable sevenwicket victory over Royal Challengers The win also helped Gautam Gambhir39s men stay in contention as an RCB victory would have decisively shut the doors on their playoff chances The defeat for RCB also made the sitiation tricky for Virat Kohli and co who now have 16 points from 15 games and will need to win their final game at any cost The foundation of this win was laid by two veterans Gilchrist and Azhar Mahmood who added 118 runs for the second wicket Mahmood scored 61 off 41 balls with eight fours and a six The duo whose cumulative age is 79 years proved that there is no substitute of experience as they both brought in their oodles of experience in international cricket to pave the way for an easy win This was after Zaheer Khan who made a comeback in competitive cricket after nearly five months cleaned up Shaun Marsh in his very second over It was Mahmood who first gave the charge hitting Moises Henriques for three successive boundaries in the last over of the Powerplay 6th Taking a cue from Mahmood39s posituve approach Gilchrist who had only one score of 40 plus in the tournament also got into the groove as he hit some cracking strokes The Aussie dasher brought up his half century with a straight six off Zaheer The standout hit will however be the the inside out six over extra cover off Muttiah Muralitharan He followed it up with another six a slog sweep over deep square legu00a0 Earlier Chris Gayle39s powerhitting in the back 10 and skipper Virat Kohli39s halfcentury enabled Royal Challengers Bangalore to reach a challenging 174 for five after being put into bat While Gayle helped himself to a 53ball77 with the help of four boundaries and six huge sixes Kohli39s contribution of 57 off 43 balls 6x4 2x6 was equally significant in their 137run second wicket stand Chris Gayle began sedately but ended withu00a053ball77 with the help of four boundaries and six huge sixes In fact the final six overs of the innings produced a whopping 86 runs with Gayle hitting Manpreet Gony for three successive sixes with 22 runs coming off the 15th over of the innings With Kohli hitting Parvinder Awana for a six and a four 15 runs came off the very next over RCB got the required momentum which seemed missing during the first 10 overs when Gayle was more intent on pushing for singles and twos as he couldn39t consistently get the big hits going in his favour RCB completed 50 runs only in the 10th over and with Gayle still at the crease it was something that even the diehard home team fans couldn39t believe For the Kings XI Awana had the best figures of three for 39 while Mahmood was certainly the most effective bowler with clever variation and mix that he used to finish with two for 24 in 4 oversu00a0