Virat Kohli - that was the flavour of Thursday evening in Dharamshala as the former Indian cricket team captain stamped his class throughout an IPL 2024 match. First, he scored a 47-ball 92 to help Royal Challengers Bengaluru score 241/7 in 20 overs against Punjab Kings. Then he was electric on the field, as he affected one of the best runouts of the IPL 2024. And it helped, RCB deal a major blow to PBKS by dismissing their most in-form batter, Shashank Singh.
Kohli's brilliance singlehandedly earned RCB the wicket as Shashank Singh fell short by inches. Kohli ran quite some distance, pounced on the ball, threw it mid-air and celebrated it wildly.
Talking about the match, Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar conjured up superlative fifties before the bowlers joined the party as Royal Challengers Bengaluru kept their slim playoff hopes alive with a huge 60-run win over Punjab Kings in the IPL on Thursday.
Kohli's 47-ball 92 was the cornerstone of RCB's innings as he starred in two partnerships -- 72 off 32 balls with Patidar (55 off 23 balls) and 92 off 46 balls with Cameron Green (46 off 27 balls) to propel RCB to 241/7.
In reply, Rilee Rossouw put up a show with a 27-ball 61-run knock but Karn Sharma's twin strike triggered a collapse as PBKS were all out for 181 in 17 overs.
This was a fourth successive win for RCB and it took them to 10 points, while PBKS (8) were knocked out of the playoff race as they can reach a maximum of 12 points from the remaining two games.
Swapnil Singh (2/28), Karn (2/36) and Lockie Ferguson (2/29) took two each, while Mohammed Siraj (3/43) claimed three wickets for RCB.
With PTI inputs