Knight Riders put 160 for Challengers to chase

Bangalore, Apr 10: Brendon McCulllum tried to repeat what he did in the very first match of this competition here two years ago, then he played a blazing unbeaten innings of 158 off just 73 deliveries, this time his innings of 45 off 35 balls helped Kolkata Knight Riders to reach a decent but chaseable target of 160 in their game against Bangalore Royal Challengers here tonight.
The New Zealander was supported by Chris Gayle (34 off 15 balls) and Skipper Sourav Ganguly (33 off 32 balls), who shared a 52-run stand for the first wicket. Few lusty blows at the end by Cheteshwar Pujara helped the visiting team cause to reach a respectable total after Anil Kumble won the toss and asked the visiting side to bat first.
Vinay Kumar was the most effective bowler for Royal Challengers, taking three wickets in three overs, while Jacques Kallis contributed with two scalps. Skipper Kumble and Dale Steyn shared a wicket each.
Earlier, Ganguly found it really hard to cope with the pace of Steyn, who touched mid 150 kph on a consistent basis while Gayle was in full flow at the other end, clubbing the ball as hard as he could. He hit two fours off Steyn in the fourth over and repeated it with two more boundaries and a massive six in the mid wicket region off Praveen Kumar, making it the most expensive over of the innings by collecting 21 runs.
Kallis brought the instant success for Challengers in sixth over of the innings. Gayle was caught at extra cover by Rahul Dravid while making room for himself to play in the off side.
Sridharan Sriram, playing his first game of the tournament, bowled a mixture of his left arm orthodox with chinaman to confuse the batsmen. But his trick was foiled by McCulllum from the beginning of his second over, hitting him for three fours and a six.
Vinay Kumar provided the much needed breakthrough for the Challengers by getting rid of Ganguly. The visiting captain stroked the ball with 103 strike rate, just few points below his average in this year’s competition – 108 per hundred balls.
Manoj Tiwary came and went without troubling the scorers after facing just two balls. Angelo Mathews did exactly the same as Tiwary, went without scoring.
Riders could have scored lot more but lost too many wickets in the latter half of their innings.