Quinton de Kock and Karun Nair helped Delhi Daredevils (DD) ease past the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by seven wickets in match No.11 of IPL 2016.
The Daredevils pulled of an incredible run chase. Chasing down 192 runs was always going to be difficult, but De Kock and Nair made it look really easy.
The South African wicketkeeper-batsman smashed his third century in T20 cricket and it came in just 48 balls. De Kock and Nair steadied the innings after the two early wickets of Shreyas Iyer and Sanju Samson. The two added 134 runs in tandem.
Iyer was dismissed in an almost unbelievable fashion as Shane Watson and David Wiese combined to take an excellent catch at the long-on boundary. After that, RCB never looked like they were in the game as De Kock ran riot along with Nair.
Nair remained unbeaten on 54 from 42 balls. JP Duminy and Nair finished things off with five balls to spare.
This indeed was an oustanding run chase as the Daredevils beat RCB after nine matches in the IPL. The last time they had beaten RCB in the IPL was back in 2010.
Earlier, Zaheer Khan had won the toss and opted to bowl first against the batting-heavy RCB. The Daredevils skipper had said during the toss that he does not want Kohli to chase as he makes it look easy.
Chris Gayle departed early but it was the AB de Villiers and Kohli show again at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The duo put together a partnership of 107 runs in 11 overs, until De Villiers got out.
Kohli continued with his onslaught. He finished with 79 runs from just 48 balls.
The Daredevils bowlers pulled things back brilliantly towards the end. Mohammed Shami, who came back after a long injury break, was outstanding in the slog overs. Chris Morris provided superb assistance as well.
RCB could only manage a total of 191 at the end of their 20 overs. At a stage when AB, Kohli and Shane Watson were batting, it looked like they would again post a total of 225-plus. But the Daredevils bowlers did an outstanding job to restrict the hosts to a total which is 10-20 runs below par.
