The article speaks about the gallant innings of AB De Villiers who scored 89 runs and helped Royal Challengers Bengaluru to chase more than 150 runs and win the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad went for a close finish. The match was played on 4th May, 2014.

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad scored a decent total of 155 runs in 20 overs. Royal Challengers Bengaluru chased the total and won the match in the 5th ball of the last over due to heroic innings of AB De Villiers.

 

Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner played aggressive innings to take Sunrisers Hyderabad to a decent total. Shikhar Dhawan scored 37 runs of 36 balls with four boundaries. David Warner scored 61 balls of 49 balls with 4 boundaries and three huge sixes. Finch, Rahul and Sammy did not make notable contribution.

Starc got 2 wickets in his 4 overs conceding 21 runs. Aaron got 2 wickets in his 4 overs conceding 33 runs.

 

The target was big. It was thought that Royal Challengers Bengaluru will fail in their chase. They got the worst start possible. Parthiv Patel was dismissed by Bhubaneswar Kumar for 3 runs. Virat Kohli scored a big duck and got dismissed in the over of Parthiv Patel, thereby adding pressure to the team.

 

Chris Gayle got a good start but could not convert it into a big score. Gayle scored 27 runs of 19 balls with 3 boundaries and 2 over boundaries. But once Gayle got dismissed by KV Sharma it looked like Royal Challengers challenge had ended.

 

Then AB De Villiers came in. He came, saw and conquered. He scored 89 runs in 41 balls with 6 boundaries and 8 over-boundaries. Due to his heroic innings the big score could be chased at the end. Even star bowlers like Dale Steyn got walloped in the last overs. Steyn conceded 39 runs of his 4 overs. Bhubaneswar Kumar was the peak of the bowlers. He conceded only 16 runs in his 4 overs and captured 2 wickets. Ishant Sharma was hammered to different parts of the park. He gave 35 runs in his 3 overs. Irfan Pathan was equally unsuccessful. He gave 25 runs in 2.5 overs.

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad is still not out of the tournament. They have chances keeping in mind their good bowling attack. After half of the IPL 2014 matches having ended, it looks like Kings Eleven Punjab, Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the three consistent teams and deserve to be in the semi-finals of the tournament. There is strong competition in respect of the 4th team to enter the semi-finals.