Bangalore win in seesaw chase

Royal Challengers Bangalore 161 for 7 (Kohli 56, M Morkel 3-25) beat Delhi Daredevils 160 for 6 (Hopes 54, Mithun 2-37) by three wickets

	Virat Kohli took just 38 balls for his 56 © AFP

The Royal Challengers Bangalore lower order scraped 22 runs from 15 deliveries to steer their side past Delhi Daredevils' 160 - a target that had looked much smaller when Virat Kohli was there, and much stiffer after his dismissal. But Daniel Vettori and J Syed Mohammad found the boundaries when they were needed, and got Bangalore home with three deliveries to spare.

It had looked like a cakewalk when Kohli was finding the boundaries at will in a breezy half-century that stunned Delhi. But David Warner provided the inspiration Delhi needed with a direct hit from the deep that ran out AB de Villiers. After Morne Morkel bowled Kohli two deliveries later, 65 needed from 66 deliveries quickly became 44 required from 30, and the Feroz Shah Kotla crowd started buzzing with the hope of a home victory.

But Syed flicked and steered Umesh Yadav for successive boundaries to bring the equation down to 12 required off two overs, and Bangalore didn't allow Delhi back again.

In the first innings, James Hopes had led a Delhi Daredevils recovery after the Royal Challengers Bangalore seamers had made the new ball talk on a Feroz Shah Kotla wicket that had less grass than the one on which Virender Sehwag and David Warner had plundered Kings XI Punjab.

Hopes and Venugopal Rao added 47 off 33 deliveries for the fifth wicket, coming in after Zaheer Khan and S Aravind made the dangerous pair of Sehwag and Warner feel for the new ball that zipped around on a helpful surface. Hopes played the percentages excellently, targeting the three Bangalore spinners for six of his seven boundaries. He also benefitted from Abhimanyu Mithun's largesse; the fast bowler overstepped while getting Hopes to slash a catch to point when on 43.