Bangalore: Royal Challengers Bangalore again rose to the top of the table with a bloodless seven-wicket victory with 13 balls to spare against Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 6 tie played at M Chinnaswamy stadium here on Saturday night.
Chasing a modest 118 for victory after Rajasthan were done in by disciplined bowling and agile fielding by the hosts, Chris Gayle scored a easy paced 49 made off 44 balls to take RCB to an easy win.
RCB now have five wins from seven games and lead the table for the moment with 10 pionts.
Earlier, Shane Watson, who bowled after more than six months due to injury, gave an outside chance to Rajasthan by scalping Tillekaratne Dilshan (25) and Virat Kohli (1) but Saurabh Tiwary (16 not out) kept company with Gayle to take home the team to an easy win.
The Jharkhand batsman played the first match this season after recovering from an injury.
Asked to bat first by Virat Kohli who won the toss, Rajasthan Royals’ innings never got going and were all out for 117 in 19.4 overs.
The openers were lost in the power play hampering the team’s progress.
Skipper Rahul Dravid played a solid knock 35 made in 31 balls and his fellow Karnataka player Stuart Binny made 33 in 20 balls.
After the two added 40 off 27 balls for the fourth wicket, it was struggle all the way for the Dravid’s men.
While RP Singh took three for 12, Vinay Kumar emerged as the new purple cap holder claiming 3 for 18.
Vinay, who was adjudged the Man-of-the-Match, has now claimed a total of 12 wickets in seven matches.
But it will not be easy the way they have bowled in the death overs and almost lost matches from as seen in the last few encounters.
Strong Indian component is the strength of Rajasthan Royals.
Besides Dravid, Ajinkya Rahane and seasoned Siddharth Trivedi have been performing well.
One thing that separates the two teams though is the talented and performing Indian players.
Ajinkya Rahane and Dravid along with S Sreesanth and Sidharth Trivedhi, have been the successful.
RCB on the other hand is hampered by the injury to its spearhead Zaheer Khan while RP Singh has not delivered.
However, the Vijay Mallya’s team will be banking on its fire power of Chris Gayle, AB de Villiars and captain Virat Kohli who have been mainly responsible for the positive results this year.
Gayle has had a couple of match-winning knocks but Kohli and Villiers have been coming good at crucial time. (PTI)