Rajasthan Royals (RR) made sure that they stay in contention for a place in the IPL 2018 playoffs with a 30-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). With this defeat, RCB are out of the IPL 2018. The Virat Kohli-led side was looking for the fourth straight win to stay alive in the tournament. Spinner Shreyas Gopal was wrecker-in-chief as he picked 4/16 to help RR defend the total of 164. RR now occupy fourth place on the IPL 2018 points table.
Chasing 164, RCB got off to a bad start as K Gowtham cleaned up Kohli. However, RCB got the momentum back with a half-century stand between Parthiv Patel and AB de Villiers. The duo did well to bail RCB out of the initial slump. RR vs RCB Full Scorecard
Just when RCB looked in control Shreyas struck twice in the ninth over. He first removed Parthiv Patel and then on next ball had Moeen Ali caught and bowled. The spinner then returned in his next over and further dented RCB with the wicket of Mandeep Singh, to leave RCB reeling at 85 for four. Ish Sodhi then complemented Shreyas by removing Colin de Grandhomme in the next over. You can watch video highlights of RR vs RCB here.
However, things turned ugly for RCB when Shreyas dismissed AB de Villiers, who was fresh from his half-century. RCB then kept losing wickets and never got a chance to bounce back and eventually fell 30 runs short.
Earlier, opting to bat, Royals rode on Rahul Tripathi’s unbeaten 80 off 58 balls to post a competitive total. The right-hander, towards the end, was well supported by Heinrich Klaasen (32 off 21 balls) and K Gowtham (14 off 5 balls). Royals will now have to depend on other results to make it to the playoffs.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 19, 2018 08:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).