New Delhi:
Gujarat Lions notched up a comfortable seven-wicket win over hosts Royal Challengers Bangalore to revive their IPL play-off hopes, at Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday. Chasing 135 to win, Gujarat lost both openers -- Ishan Kishan (16) and Brendon McCullum (3) -- to be reduced to 23-2 but Finch blasted 5 fours and 6 sixes in his scintillating 34 -ball 72-run innings as the visitors romped home with 6.1 overs to spare.
Batting first, the home team failed to live up to the expectations with another sloppy batting display in their bid to avoid elimination. The entire top batting order collapsed within first seven overs. However, the tailenders managed to put 134 runs on the board.
Andrew Tye returned with a three-wicket haul to trigger a top-order collapse. Tye, who had taken a hat-trick on IPL debut against Rising Pune Supergiant at Rajkot, struck twice in two balls and returned with figures of 4-0-12-3 to leave the hosts at 22-3 in the fifth over.
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Besides Tye, Ravindra Jadeja (2/28) snapped two wickets, Basil Thampi (1/34) and Ankit Soni (1/28) picked up one wicket each as Lions dished out a disciplined bowling performance.
It's not just that #RCB have lost but how they have lost that confounds all of us. Maybe look back at the balance of the team?
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 27, 2017
For RCB, Pawan Negi (32) and Kedar Jadhav (31) were the top scorers. This is only the third victory in the season for Gujarat Lions, who had gathered just four points from seven games to be languishing at the bottom of the table.
With this loss, the door is fast closing for RCB, who has just five points from nine matches.
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