A quickfire 56 from Jason Roy helped Kolkata Knight Riders to a 21-run victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League.
RCB looked like they might be able to chase down their target of 201 after Virat Kohli (54) threatened to outdo Roy, but once wickets started to fall the hosts ran out of steam quickly.
Roy brought up his 50 from just 22 balls, while Narayan Jagadeesan (27) played a supporting role, but the latter became the first wicket to fall as he tried to hit Vijaykumar Vyshak for six, instead finding David Willey for a simple catch on the boundary.
Vyshak (2-41) then clattered the leg stump of Roy in the same over to give RCB another boost as they looked to get back in to the game.
Captain Nitish Rana (48 from 21 balls) was dropped twice and made RCB pay as he blitzed some boundaries, before finally being caught well by Vyshak off the bowling of Wanindu Hasaranga (2-24).
Venkatesh Iyer (31) was also gone just two balls later after hitting one straight up in the air for Glenn Maxwell to take, while Mohammed Siraj bowled Andre Russell for just one in the penultimate over.
Rinku Singh (18*) and David Wiese (12*) added some welcome late boundaries to the end of the innings and set a target just beyond 200, but the reply started well for RCB.
Kohli and Faf Du Plessis (17) hit 30 from the first two overs, though the South African was out in the third as he hit Suyash Sharma to Rinku at long-on.
Suyash (2-30) had another soon after when he trapped Shahbaz Ahmed (2) lbw, and Maxwell (5) was not far behind as he hit a soft shot off Varun Chakravarthy straight to Wiese.
Mahipal Lomror was nicely dovetailing with Kohli as he knocked 34 from 18 balls before finding Russell’s safe hands on the boundary as he tried to slog Chakravarthy (3-27).
Hope seemed to be over for the hosts when Kohli hit Russell to deep mid-wicket, only for Venkatesh to take the catch, while Suyash Prabhudessai (10) was run out and Hasaranga added just five before departing.
Once Dinesh Karthik has fallen to Chakravarthy for 22, the writing was on the wall as the Knight Riders clinched just their third win of the season.
Roy wracks up runs
England batter Roy struck 56 to bring up his fourth 50+ score overall in the IPL; and has now scored 160 runs so far in this, his fourth season, his highest of any prior IPL campaign.
Roy hit four fours and five sixes on Wednesday, with no other batter on either team hitting as many maximums.
Kohli notches another 50
The RCB captain was not quite as explosive as Roy, taking 37 balls to make his 54 and not hitting any sixes (six fours), but Kohli still set the table for what could have been a decent stab at reaching 201 for his team, though it fizzled out fairly rapidly.
This was his fifth 50+ score of the season, the joint-most of any batter (with team-mate Du Plessis), while it was his 54th 50+ score in the competition’s history, second to only David Warner (63). (Sportsmax)
