Virat Kohli had inspired his team single-handedly in the last match to cruise towards a daunting target with a brilliant century against the Supergiants. However, Royal Challengers Bangalore’s bowling issues still remained.
Desperately seeking another two points, they locked horns with Kings XI Punjab who showed signs of a turnaround under Murali Vijay’s leadership. The new skipper won the toss and decided to have a bowl as Glenn Maxwell was surprisingly dropped.
Despite losing their top-order in a cluster, the Royal Challengers managed to reach a competitive total, courtesy AB de Villiers. Though Vijay batted with authority and took his side really close, the much maligned RCB bowling attack finally stepped up to pull off a sensational heist.
Let us take a look at the most important statistics from the tense contest.
0 – David Miller registered his first duck in the IPL when he was stumped off the bowling of Yuzvendra Chahal. However, the South African remains the only batsman to have scored more than 1000 IPL runs (1450 to be precise) without a naught.
1 – Matches played by medium pacer Anureet Singh in this IPL. On the contrary, the Kings XI bowler had not missed a single match in the previous season.
2 – Fifty-plus stands for RCB openers in this IPL. Prior to two successive partnerships by Rahul and Kohli, their opening batsmen had gone thirteen matches without one.
2 – Half-century partnerships by RCB batsmen for the fourth wicket in this IPL. The 88-run stand between de Villiers and Sachin Baby is their second such effort in consecutive matches.
2 – Fifty-plus scores for Vijay in the four matches that he has played as Punjab’s captain in this IPL.
3 – Tosses won by both Kings XI and RCB in this IPL. Considering the recurring trend of chasing huge totals, the two bottom placed teams also have the worst record in tosses as well.
4 – Totals in excess of 170 at the IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali which is joint-second with the venues in Pune and Mumbai. As expected, the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru leads the list with eight such scores.
4 – Instances when Kohli scored more than 500 runs in an IPL season. The 27-year old has done this in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016. No other batsman has been able to manage this feat.
4 – Fifty-plus scores for de Villiers in this IPL. Only Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, David Warner and Rohit Sharma have more such scores during this season.
4 – Number of batsmen who got stumped in their first delivery of an IPL match. Miller joined the likes of Amit Singh, Sunny Gupta and Manish Pandey in this unique list.
8 – Balls in which RCB lost the wickets of Rahul, Kohli and Shane Watson. They were cruising at 63/0 when the spinning duo of KC Cariappa and Axar Patel reduced them to 67/3.
9 – Scores of 170 and above for RCB in this IPL. The star-studded lineup has been the only one to achieve this feat in all the matches that they played, so far.
50 – Boundaries scored by Kohli in this IPL. The top run-scorer is closely followed by Warner with 46 fours and Rahane with 45 hits to the fence.
89 – Runs scored by Vijay which is the second highest for a Kings XI captain in an IPL match. The right-hander is only behind Adam Gilchrist who took apart RCB with a century in 2011.
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