Gayle savages Sabres
Chris Gayle on Monday played the sort of innings only he can to give Royal Challengers Bangalore the sort of win they desperately needed to keep their Champions League Twenty20 campaign alive.
Gayle's assault on Somerset Sabres at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here ensured the margin of victory -- 51 runs -- was the largest of the tournament, and not only did it earn the Royal Challengers their first points but also dragged their previously negative net run-rate ahead of that of three other teams in Group B.
The Royal Challengers now need only to win their remaining game, against South Australia, by a reasonable margin to make the semi-finals. Despite the severity of today's defeat, though, Somerset also need only to win their last group game against Warriors to progress.
Somerset had their chances early in the match -- two of them were difficult -- to prevent this suffering but they didn't take them. Gayle was dropped in the second over, two balls after he had hit his first four to get off the mark. He miscued a loft off Steve Kirby over extra cover but Jos Buttler couldn't run back quickly enough. In Kirby's next over -- the fourth off the innings -- Gayle survived two run-out attempts off the same ball, both at the same end. He was on 8 at the time.
Tillakaratne Dilshan, Gayle's opening partner, was also let off. He initiated the acceleration by scooping Peter Trego over short fine leg, but when he tried to repeat it next ball, he didn't connect as well. Kirby, who had to run back from the circle, dived and pushed the ball towards the boundary. Dilshan then charged to blaze through cover, the third consecutive four, and also slogged over the long-on boundary to take 19 off the third over.
Gayle had thumped the ball to the boundary every now and then but his start was relatively sedate: only 29 came off his first 25 balls. By that time, Roelof van der Merwe had bowled Dilshan round his legs and Virat Kohli had begun striking the ball splendidly on a true pitch and a quick outfield. Kohli lofted Murali Kartik's left-arm spin for a four through extra cover and a six over long-off to take Bangalore to 87 for 1 after 10 overs.
SCORES IN BRIEF
ROYAL CHALLENGERS
BANGALORE: 206 for 6 (Gayle 86, Kohli 33, Dilshan 23; Kirby 2-23, Thomas 2-33)
SOMERSET: 155 for 6 (Trego 58, Kieswetter 26; Aravind 2-23, Vettori 2-25)
Result: Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 51 runs.
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