BENGALURU, May 14: AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli today orchestrated a mayhem by scoring magnificent centuries as Royal Challengers Bangalore inflicted a crushing 144-run defeat on league leaders Gujarat Lions, recording the biggest ever victory in the history of Indian Premier League here.
Batting first, RCB plundered a massive 248 for 3, courtesy De Villiers�s 129 not out and an equally attractive 108 by Kohli, with records falling like ninepins at the Chinnaswamy Stadium during the afternoon session.
Having been deflated in the first session itself, Gujarat Lions capitulated to a meagre 104 all out in 18.4 overs with Chris Jordan picking up 4/11 in 3 overs and leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal getting 3/19 in 4 overs.
With 10 points from 11 games and a positive net run-rate of +0.627, RCB will fancy their chances of sneaking in as the third or fourth team into the play-offs by winning all their remaining three games.
While this is the second highest team score in the history of IPL behind RCB�s 263 for five against Pune Warriors, the Kohli-De Villiers combine eclipsed its own partnership record by pummelling the Lions to add a staggering 229 runs in just 16 overs.
The previous best was 215 against Mumbai Indians during the last edition. Kohli also became the first player in the history of IPL to score two centuries against the same opponents in one edition of the league.
SCORECARD
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Chris Gayle b Kulkarni 6, Virat Kohli c Bravo b Kumar 109, AB de Villiers not out 129, Shane Watson c Karthik b Kumar 0. Extras: (B 1, LB 1, W 1, NB 1) 4. Total: (3 wickets; 20 overs) 248. Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-248, 3-248. Bowling: P Kumar 4-1-45-2, Dhawal Kulkarni 3-0-33-1, S Kaushik 3-0-50-0, P Tambe 2-0-25-0, D Bravo 3-0-46-0, R Jadeja 4-0-34-0, D Smith 1-0-13-0.
Gujarat Lions: Dwayne Smith b Aravind 7, Brendon McCullum c de Villiers b Chahal 11, Ravindra Jadeja c & b Jordan 21, Dinesh Karthik c de Villiers b Jordan 2, Aaron Finch c Aravind b Sachin Baby 37, Dwayne Bravo lbw b Chahal 1, Akshdeep Nath b Chahal 3, Praveen Kumar b Jordan 1, Dhawal Kulkarni b Jordan 2, Pravin Tambe not out 7, Shivil Kaushik c Aravind b Sachin Baby 0. Extras: (B-1, LB-3, W-5, NB-3) 12. Total: 104 all out in 18.4 overs. Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-37, 3-44, 4-44, 5-47, 6-68, 7-69, 8-74, 9-104. Bowling: Binny 2-0-13-0, Aravind 3-0-15-1, Chahal 4-0-19-3, Watson 1-0-3-0, Jordan 3-0-11-4, Aaron 2-0-19-0, Kohli 1-0-13-0, Gayle 2-0-3-0, Baby 0.4-0-4-2. � PTI
