Royal Challengers stun high-flying Sunrisers; Kohli, Patidar hit fifties: Sunrisers Hyderabad batters fail

Hyderabad: Royal Challengers Bengaluru beat high-flying Sunrisers Hyderabad by 35 runs to register their only second win in 9 matches in the Indian Premier League at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Thursday night.

After scoring huge total of 206, the visitors restricted Sunrisers at 171 in 20 overs.

Sunrisers batters, who already scored 250 runs in three occasions in this edition, failed today. In-form Travis Head went back in the first over. Young Abhishek Sharma struck some good shots to score 31 runs from 13 balls, but Aiden Markram (7), Nitish Reddy (13), Heinrich Klaasen (7), Abdul Samad (10) went back before the 10th over. Captain Pat Cummins hit 31 from 15 after the disaster. Shahbaz Ahmed played till the end to score unbeaten 40.

Earlier, Rajat Patidar and Virat Kohli struck half-centuries in contrasting fashion as Royal Challengers Bengaluru posted 206/7 in 20 overs despite a three-fer by Sunrisers Hyderabad's Jaydev Unadkat in his 100th match.

Kohli scored his fifty off 37 balls while Patidar hammered his half-century off just 19 balls as RCB posted another 200-plus score after skipper Faf du Plessis opted to bat first on a dual-paced pitch on which the slower one was quite effective.

Patidar blasted four sixes in an over off Mayank Markande to shore up the RCB scoring rate after Kohli struggled to break free. Unadkat applied the brakes on the free-scoring RCB innings by claiming the key wickets of Patidar, Kohli and Mahipal Lomror for a fine haul of 3-30 off four overs in his 100th outing in IPL.

Cameron Green (37 off 20) and Impact Player Swapnil Singh (12 off 6 balls) unleashed some big shots in the death overs as RCB crossed the 200-run mark again in IPL 2024. Swapnil hammered a four and six off the first two deliveries of the final over as RCB ended on a strong note.

Earlier, Kohli and du Plessis struck a couple of fours each as they raced to 48 in the fourth over before the skipper departed.

Skipper du Plessis struck Bhuvneshwar Kumar for three boundaries in the second over, the pick of them being a four crashed through the covers off a fullish delivery outside the off stump.

In the next over, he welcomed Pat Cummins with a superb six, scooping behind a delivery picked from around off-stump and planting him over the leg-side for the first six of this match. But the introduction of T. Natarajan brought his downfall when he holed out near the deep cover boundary trying to maintain the RCB scoring tempo in Power-play.

Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bengaluru 206/7 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli 51, Rajat Patidar 50, Cameron Green 37 not out; Jaydev Unadkat 3-30, T.Natarajan 2-39) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 171/8 in 20 overs (Shabaz Ahmed 40no, Abhishek Sharma 31, Pat Cummins 31, Karn Sharma 2/29, Cameron Green 2/12). Agencies

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