Jos Buttler’s 100 trumped Virat Kohli’s 113 as Rajasthan Royals overhauled Royal Challengers Bengaluru by six wickets in the Indian Premier League.
Kohli anchored Bengaluru to 3-183 on Saturday with a record-extending eighth IPL century that equalled his highest score in the competition.
His unbeaten 113 off 72 balls including 12 boundaries and four sixes came at a venue where the Indian batting maestro had struggled in Twenty20s and never scored a half-century.
But Buttler outdid him with his own unbeaten 100 off 58 balls, combining with captain Sanju Samson (69) in a 148-run second-wicket stand to help Rajasthan reach their target at 4-189 with five balls remaining.
Rajasthan earned their fourth straight win, while Bengaluru lost for the fourth time in five games.
Buttler was elated to raise his century in his 100th IPL game with the winning hit for six in the final over.
Needing six to get to three figures, he pulled Australian Cameron Green’s short ball just over the midwicket boundary for his fourth maximum of an innings that also featured nine boundaries.
Buttler had scored 11, 11 and 13 in his previous IPL games and looked quite out of touch but the England captain finally hit form after struggling teammate Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed for a second-ball duck by Reece Topley (2-27).
Bengaluru’s depleted spin attack then struggled to collar Buttler and Samson, who shared the highest partnership of the season.
Earlier, Kohli and Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis (44) put on a 125-run opening stand in 14 overs.
But Ravichandran Ashwin (0-28) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2-34) kept the runs in check in the middle overs and there was another failure for Australian allrounder Glenn Maxwell, who was bowled for one by Nandre Burger.
Maxwell has now scored just 32 runs in five IPL knocks this season, and he didn’t get to bowl either.
Green only faced six balls at the end to finish 5no, and then went wicketless off his 3.1 overs, going for 27 runs in all.
Kohli got a life on 67 when Burger couldn’t hold a sharp chance at backward point but India’s maestro went on to raise one of the slower hundreds in the IPL off 67 balls.
Chahal broke the century partnership when Du Plessis was caught at long-on, and squeezed the runs in the death overs.
Source Agencies
