BANGALORE, May 8 (PTI): Powered by Chris Gayle�s blistering 16-ball 44 and Tillakaratne Dilshan�s unbeaten 52, Royal Challengers Bangalore registered a nine-wicket win over Kochi Tuskers Kerala in the Indian Premier League at the M Chinnaswamy stadium here today.
Chasing a modest target of 126, the Royal Challengers romped with 6.5 overs to spare.
This was Bangalore�s fifth win on the trot and it has taken their points tally to 13 from ten matches. A victory against Rajasthan Royals at Jaipur on May 11 would put them in strong contention for a place in the top-four.
The ignominious defeat, on the other hand, has scuttled Kochi Tusker�s hopes of advancing to the knock-out stage as they have just ten points from eleven games.
Gayle was at this belligerent best again today. Beginning with a smacked six off R P Singh, Gayle savaged 37 runs off Prashanth Parameswaran�s first over, hitting four sixes and three fours constituting his scoring shots.
The crowd was delirious with his power-hitting before R Vinay Kumar uprooted his off-stump.
Today�s bevy of five sixes took Gayle�s tally to 26 in the fourth edition of the IPL. His punishing 44 took his run aggregate to 338 in five games. Interestingly, 280 of these runs have come through fours (31) and sixes.
The towering West Indies batsman has a phenomenal strike rate of over 200, clearly ahead of Virender Sehwag�s 176.66.
Dilshan, too joined the party with a aggressive half-century, imperiously making up for his recent failures with some awesome strokes.
Virat Kohli remained unbeaten on 27, raising 61 runs for the unbroken second wicket with Dilshan.
SCORECARD
Kochi Tuskers Kerala: Michael Klinger b Gayle 24, Brendon McCullum c A Karthik b Vettori 22, Parthiv Patel run out 19, Mahela Jayawardene c Villiers b Vettori 3, Brad Hodge c Zaheer b Aravind 5, Ravindra Jadeja c Kaif b Mithun 23, Raiphi Gomez c Kohli b Aravind 7, R Vinay Kumar c Vettori b Zaheer 3, Ramesh Powar not out 8, RP Singh run out 0, Prasanth Parameswaran not out 1. Extras: (NB-1, W-9) 10. Total: (For nine wkts in 20 overs) 125. Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-64, 3-72, 4-73, 5-89, 6-106, 7-115, 8-122, 9-122. Bowling: Zaheer Khan 4-0-26-1, Sreenath Aravind 4-0-20-2, Chris Gayle 4-0-26-1, Daniel Vettori 4-0-24-2, Abhimanyu Mithun 3-0-21-0, Tillakratne Dilshan 1-0-8-0.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Chris Gayle b Vinay Kumar 44, Tillakaratne Dilshan not out 52, Virat Kohli not out 27. Extras: (LB 2, W 2, NB 1) 5. Total: (for one wicket in 13.1 overs) 128. Fall of wickets: 1-67. Bowling: RP Singh 2-0-13-0, Romesh Powar 2-0-27-0, Prasanth Parameswaran 2.1-0-44-0, R Vinay Kumar 3-0-18-1, Ravindra Jadeja 4-0-24-0.
