Royal Challengers thrash Punjab in their own den - Royal Challengers Bangalore hosted the Kings XI Punjab in the 40th match of the Indian Premiere League. This was a match important for the home team as they wanted to secure a safe spot among the top 4 of the league table. In this match after winning the toss Punjab won the toss and decided to field first.
This was one of the biggest mistake done by Punjab as Chris Gayle who was making a comeback was looking dangerous from the word go. He along with Virat Kohli scored 119 runs for the 1st wicket. These runs were scored only in 11.2 overs. Kohli after scoring 32 runs lost his wicket. His brought AB de Villiers into bat. The wicket was not a good sign for the visitors as Gayle and De Villiers toyed around with the bowlers hitting each bowl out of the park. Gayle scored 117 runs in just 57 balls hitting 12 massive sixes. He lost his wicket in the 17th over and left the ground after creating the famous Gayle Storm. AB on the other hand scored 47 runs in 24 balls. With this batting effort the host team was able to post a total of 226 runs. Aruneet Singh was the best bowler as he gave away only 25 runs in 4 overs being the most economical bowler in the match for visitors.
A total of 227 in 20 overs is quite a tough one and with a bowling line-up as that of Bangalore the task becomes tougher. The Punjab team were reduced to 34/5 as all the hard hitting batsmen were back in the dressing room. The top order collapsed and before the innings could have started the match already ended. The total of 227 looked similar to Mount Everest as the team collapsed further to a score of 88 runs only. Mitchell Starc and Sreenath Aravind took 4 wickets each while Axar Patel was the top scorer scoring 40 runs.
Chris Gayle was named as the man of the match, HotStar of the match and he also won the Yes bank Maximum Sixes award.