IPL 2016, Match 19: Gujarat Lions beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 6 wickets at Rajkot, Stars and Flops

Royal Challengers Bangalore succumb to a six-wicket defeat despite Virat Kohli's maiden T20 hundred. Gujarat Lions move to the top spot.

It was that sort of a day for Virat Kohli when everything went right for him. Well almost. He won his first toss for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)  in this edition of Indian Premier League (IPL), he smashed his maiden Twenty20 (T20) hundred but unfortunately ended up in the losing side. Batting first, RCB had put up 180 on the board, which they thought would be enough at the half-way stage considering the wicket was deteriorating. Once again, it was their bowling which let them down as home side Gujarat Lions (GL) sealed a six-wicket win.

Chasing 181, GL were off to a flyer. Opener Dwayne Smith smacked 32 from 21 balls, while Brendon McCullum blasted 42 from just 24 balls. They were 72 for one after six overs, which is the most number of runs scored in powerplay so far in this IPL. RCB did manage to slow things down with mystery spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, who bowled four overs for 21 runs and claiming the key wicket of McCullum. READ MORE: IPL 2016, Match 19, Pick of the tweets: Gujarat Lions vs Royal Challengers Bangalore at Rajkot

Skipper Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik played sensibly to get them to a winning position before Karthik stepped up and finished it off.

RCB bowling let them down again and it was surprising to see Kohli not using Stuart Binny’s bowling.

Turning Point:  With 21 needed from two overs, Kohli trusted left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla with the job. Karthik is known to be a very able player of spin bowling and Ravindra Jadeja being a left-hander, Abdulla was not going to trouble him much. Abdulla conceded 14 and that was the game. Earlier, what hurt RCB was the 72 runs in the Powerplay.

Today was a rare day when we witnessed Man of the Match awarded to someone from the losing side. Such was the quality of Kohli’s knock. He showed again that runs can be scored in the shortest format without slogging. He played a calculated innings, bisecting the gaps and fans were treated to a sheer quality knock on the day of Sachin Tendulkar’s 43rd birthday.

With this win, Gujarat have now moved to the top of the table.

Brief Scores:

Royal Challengers Bangalore 180 for 2 in 20 overs [Virat Kohli 100 (63)*, KL Rahul 51 (35)*] lost to Gujarat Lions 182 for 4 in 19.3 overs [Dwayne Smith 32 (21), Brendon McCullum 42 (24), Dinesh Karthik 50 (39)*; Tabraiz Shamsi 4-0-21-1] by six wickets.