Captain Gautam Gambhir led from the front with a 46-ball 59 as Kolkata Knight Riders scored 154 for eight against Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Pepsi Indian Premier League match here today.
Gambhir shared 51 runs with Yusuf Pathan (27 off 17 balls) to take KKR total past 150 as RCB bowlers struck regularly after the home side chose to field at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Other KKR batsmen -- Jacques Kallis (16) and Manoj Tiwary (23) -- batted well but could not convert the starts into big knocks.
Gambhir survived a run-out after a mix-up with Kallis when he was on one. He cut the ball to the point and set off for a single but his partner was not interested in the run. Gambhir was lucky, a better throw from RCB captain Virat Kohli would have seen his back early on. He then cracked two magnificent boundaries off R P Singh.
The KKR captain looked like he had a plan to unsettle legendary off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. He hit two consecutive boundaries in the very first over of Muralitharan. First, he came down the wicket and drove through covers and then went down on his knees to loft the ball to long-on fence.
Gambhir survived yet another run-out after the third umpire ruled that the wicketkeeper had not collected the ball cleanly before breaking the stumps. He then reached his 17th IPL fifty by gently nudging Jaydev Unadkat to third man.
After crashing Unadkat for a six, Gambhir top-edged Vinay Kumar for the bowler to take a return catch.
Having failed in the last two games, Pathan began with a bang smacking three consecutive boundaries of Vinay Kumar. He then lined up Jaydev Unadkat for a six over deep mid-wicket fence, but he could not last long as he was caught by Vinay Kumar off Henriques.
Eoin Morgan followed suit as he was out on his fifth ball for two off R P Singh.
