Virat Kohli played a captain's knock to lead the Royal Challengers Bangalore to a four-run victory over the Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match at the Ferozeshah Kotla here Friday.
Kohli struck a 58-ball 99 to take the visitors to a challenging 183/4 after being put into bat against which Daredevils displayed a spirited performance to end at 179/7 in 20 overs.
Kohli's magnificent innings included 10 boundaries and four huge sixes as he hammered the Daredevils bowlers all around the ground. The 24-year-old got run-out on the last ball of the innings looking for his first Twenty20 century.
After losing destructive opener Chris Gayle (4) and Cheteshwar Pujara (17) by the fifth over, Australia's Moises Henriques (26) and Kohli struck an important 57-run partnership to stabilise Bangalore's innings.
Daredevils' stand-in skipper David Warner introduced spin with Shahbaz Nadeem who slowed down the visitors with Henriques' wicket.
But in came A.B. de Villiers, who along with Kohli, changed the course of the match by hammering 32 off 17 balls including two fours and two sixes. The South African fooled the bowlers by walking across the wicket and aiming for shots behind the stumps which fetched the Royal Challengers several runs in the death overs.
Kohli and de Villiers just destroyed the Delhi bowlers in the four overs which went for an incredible 77 runs propelling them to a challenging total. The Delhi crowd loved the hammering so much that they started chanting RCB instead of their home team's name.
Umesh Yadav's last two overs went for 47 runs, making him finish his quota of four overs with forgettable figures of none for 65. Irfan Pathan, Shahbaz Nadeem and Siddharth Kaul took a wicket each.
It was indeed Kohli's night out, who first edged one to Mornie Morkel but was declared not out because of a no ball when he was on duck. Then Virender Sehwag dropped him at short mid-wicket to give the Delhi-boy another lease of life.
In reply, the displayed a determined performance, falling just four runs short in the end. With this loss, Delhi recorded their third consecutive defeat and 10th of the tournament.
The Daredevils started well but had lost their big three - Mahela Jayawardene (19), Virender Sehwag (18) and Warner (4) - by the seventh over which put the brakes. However, Unmukt Chand (41) and Ben Rohrer (32) tried to steady their ship by putting together 58 runs for the fourth wicket.
However, Rohrer's wicket led to a mini collapse as the hosts lost three wickets in a span of 13 runs.
Pathan (23 not out) and Morkel (19) gave a last try at the end to take the hosts home but left arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat denied them that.
Unadkat was the pick of the bowlers giving away only 25 runs and taking five wickets from his four overs. He picked up Jayawardene, Sehwag, Chand, Kedar Jadhav (8) and Morne Morkel.
