Gilly & Co. stun Bangalore to keep hopes alive

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It appeared ridiculously easy and more so given the way in which the 41-year-old Adam Gillchrist and the 38-year-old Azhar went about their task of decimating Royal Challengers Bangalore. Returning to the ground some 21 days after Chris Gayle’s sensational assault, the Challengers were humbled in the most decisive manner.
A proud record of six straight wins at home for Virat Kohli’s men came crashing down leaving their hopes of a play-off berth hanging by a fine thread as Gilchrist’s band of kings rode on their skipper’s knock to outplay the Challengers at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday.
If the chase at Mohali some eight days was breathtaking because of a young tyro in David Miller, it was simply clinical here as Gilchrist (85 n.o., 54b, 10x4, 3x6) didn’t as much roll back the years as he used his rich experience to silence the home team and their fans.
Having put the Challengers in and stifled them in the first half of the innings before Chris Gayle (77, 53b, 4x4, 6x6) and Kohli (57, 43b, 6x4, 2x6) added 136 for the second wicket to take their team to 174/5, Gilchrist turned the heat on. In the company of Mahmood (61, 41b), the Kings XI skipper put on 118 (77b) for the second wicket as the Challengers, who went green in their charitable cause, saw red. Kings XI, seemingly out for the count, not only played party-poopers but kept their slim hopes alive racing away to 176/3 with 11 deliveries to spare.
It meant that RCB stayed put at 16 points with just one game, the big one, against Chennai Super Kings to go on Saturday. For all purposes, their challenge has ended unless the Sunrisers, the Knight Riders and Kings XI themselves shoot themselves in their foot to hand Kohli’s men an improbable back door entry into the qualifiers.
By no means was the 175 target — the same score that the big Jamaican had single-handedly blazed away against Pune Warriors the last time he played on this ground, — a small one. Gayle took his time as did the Challengers; the first ten produced just 52 before the West Indian opened up with a brazen assault on Manpreet Gony in the 15th over.
Kohli joined in the fun as the last ten fetched 122 for the home team, who made four changes with Zaheer Khan getting his first match in 15 games.
Zaheer got a wicket too dismissing Shaun Marsh early on but that was all the Challengers could do as Gilchrist, going through a none-too-successful campaign personally, decided to uncork some of his big-hitting abilities. It wasn’t razzle-dazzle but purely professional stuff as the left-hander swept and pulled and in the process buried the Challengers in a heap.