MUMBAI: Virat Kohli smashed an unbeaten 73 and Rohit Sharma struck form with 76 not out in match-winning knocks for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians in an IPL super Sunday.<\/p>\n
The in-form Kohli hit his fourth half-century of this edition of the popular T20 tournament to anchor Bengaluru\u2019s chase of 158 in a seven-wicket win over Punjab Kings at Mullanpur, near Chandigarh.
\nAnother Indian veteran Rohit struck form with his first fifty this season in the second match of the day to lead Mumbai\u2019s nine-wicket hammering of Chennai Super Kings in a battle of heavyweights.
\nRohit, 37, put on 114 runs with Suryakumar Yadav, who hit 68 off 30 balls, as they steered the five-time champions\u2019 chase of 177, getting there with 26 balls to spare.
\nRohit, 37, came in as impact substitute in the chase and put on 63 with Ryan Rickleton, who fell for 24 off Ravindra Jadeja, to lay the foundations of Mumbai\u2019s third straight win.
\n\u201cAfter being here for such a long period of time, it\u2019s easy to start doubting yourself and start doing different things,\u201d Rohit said after being named player of the match.
\n\u201cFor me, it was important to do simple things and have a clear mindset. It was important for me to hold my shape and extend my arms, and when the ball was in my area, I had to do what I have been doing.\u201d
\nRohit struggled for form until this knock with just 82 runs in his previous six innings but found his groove with trademark flicks and pulls.
\nHe reached his fifty in 33 balls but Suryakumar was in a hurry and his knock included some audacious shots behind the wicket raised his half-ton in 26 deliveries.
\nRohit and Suryakumar smashed 11 sixes between them.
\nBowlers set up victory after Jasprit Bumrah\u2019s 2-25 and spinner Mitchell Santner\u2019s 1-14 kept Chennai down to 176-5.
\nShivam Dube, who made 50, and Jadeja, who hit an unbeaten 53, put on 79 runs for the fourth wicket and 17-year-old Ayush Mhatre smashed 32 off 15 balls after being the youngest player to debut for Chennai.
\nFive-time winners Chennai, led by M.S. Dhoni after regular skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad pulled out injured mid-season, crashed to their sixth defeat in eight matches to stay bottom of the 10-team table.
\nIn the first match of the day, Bengaluru were propelled by a 103-run second-wicket stand between Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal, who hit 61, to reach their target with seven balls to spare.
\nBengaluru avenged their loss to Punjab at home on Friday and the two teams, both seeking their first IPL title, are level on points.
\n\u201cVery important game for us,\u201d said player of the match Kohli. \u201cWhen you go from eight (points) to 10, it makes a massive difference.\u201d
\nKohli on his anchor role said: \u201cOne partnership is good enough in T20 cricket during run chase. I can accelerate, but I want to understand the strengths of other players.
\n\u201cHolding one end up at the moment, that\u2019s working for us.\u201d
\nThe in-form Kohli, 36, struck his fourth half-ton of the season and surpassed Australia\u2019s David Warner for the most 50-plus scores in the popular T20 tournament.
\nKohli has now made it past the 50-mark 67 times, including eight centuries.
\nLeft-handed Padikkal struck his first fifty of the season, after Bengaluru lost opener Phil Salt in the first over to Arshdeep Singh.
\nPadikkal fell to Harpreet Brar, leaving Kohli to play the anchor in a 54-ball knock laced with seven fours and a six.
\nBengaluru spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma took two wickets each to set up victory as they helped restrict Punjab to 157-6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MUMBAI: Virat Kohli smashed an unbeaten 73 and Rohit Sharma struck form with 76 not out in match-winning knocks for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians in an IPL super Sunday. The in-form Kohli hit his fourth half-century of this edition of the popular T20 tournament to anchor Bengaluru\u2019s chase of 158 in a seven-wicket …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79917,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79886\/revisions\/79917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}