In the 65th match of IPL 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets. Batting first, Hyderabad scored 186 runs for five wickets. In response, RCB scored 187 runs losing two wickets in 19.2 overs, and won the match. Veteran batsman Virat Kohli returned to his form for RCB, scoring his sixth century in the IPL. He was well supported by Faf Duplessis and both shared a 172-run partnership for the first wicket.
A marvellous victory by the @RCBTweets
They win by 8 wickets and add two all important points to their tally.@imVkohli leads the chase with a fantastic
Scorecard - https://t.co/stBkLWLmJS #TATAIPL #SRHvRCB #IPL2023 pic.twitter.com/JxTtK5llfl — IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) May 18, 2023
The partnership between these two gave Royal Challengers Bangalore a one-sided eight-wicket win against Sunrisers Hyderabad. With this, RCB's hopes of making it to the playoffs are still alive, while Hyderabad is already out of the race. RCB will have to win their last match to reach the playoffs and stay ahead of Mumbai in terms of run rate. Both the teams have to play one league match each. Currently, Mumbai's run rate is -0.128 and RCB's run rate is +0.180.
With the help of Heinrich Klaasen's 104 off 51 balls, Hyderabad scored 186 for five in 20 overs. He hit eight fours and six sixes. Michael Bracewell took two wickets for Bangalore. In reply, Kohli and Faf made the target look easy. Both scored quick runs to improve the team's net run rate and won with four balls to spare.
Bad start for Hyderabad
Royal Challengers Bangalore won the toss and decided to bowl first. Bangalore's bowlers dropped Hyderabad's two wickets for 28 runs. But he could not stop Klaasen from playing his century. Klaasen shared a 76-run partnership in 50 balls for the third wicket with Markram. He then shared a 74-run partnership in 36 balls for the fourth wicket with Harry Brook. Hyderabad's top-order batsmen Abhishek (11), Rahul Tripathi (15), and Aiden Markram (18) combined to score 44 runs in 46 balls. Klaasen is the first Hyderabad player to score a century as a non-opener.
Klaasen scored his first century in IPL in 49 balls. He faced 51 balls in his innings of 104 runs which included eight fours and six sixes. He completed his century by hitting Harshal for a six in the 19th over. However, he got bowled in the same over. This is the seventh century in this season of IPL. For Bangalore, Michael Bracewell took two wickets for a maximum of 13 runs. Hyderabad scored 186 runs for five wickets in 20 overs.
Record partnership of Kohli and Duplessis
Chasing the target of 187 runs, the RCB team got off to a brisk start by skipper Plessis and Virat Kohli. Together they added 64 runs in the powerplay. Even after this, both players kept scoring fast. Virat completed his half-century in 35 balls and Duplessis in 34 balls. With this, RCB's score crossed 100 runs. After this, Virat started scoring fast and took RCB's score beyond 150.
Kohli completed his century in 62 balls, but he was dismissed in an attempt to hit a six in the very next ball. Shortly after this, Plessis also returned to the pavilion after scoring 71 runs. However, the RCB team had reached the threshold of victory by then. Glenn Maxwell teamed up with Michael Bracewell to win his team. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan took one wicket each for Hyderabad.