IPL 2023: Virat’s Century Leads Banglore To Win Match Against Hyderabad By Eight Wickets; RCB Secures Fourth Position By Pulling MI To Fifth In Points Table
Hyderabad, 18th May 2023: Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) Heinrich Klaasen scored a century and challenged Royal Challengers Banglore (RCB) by 187 runs. But Virat Kohli also replied to the challenge with a century. On the strength of this century, RCB chased Hyderabad’s challenge of 187 runs in 19.2 overs at the cost of two wickets in the 65th match of the season. Faf Du Plessis scored 71 runs for RCB. Both of them gave a powerful opening of 172 runs.
Virat Kohli scored his first century of the season at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. This became his sixth century in IPL history. He also equaled Chris Gayle’s record for most centuries in IPL. Virat also completed 50 half-centuries in IPL today.
By looking at the points table, RCB has won today’s match and has increased its number of points to 14. They secured the fourth position in the points table and pushed Mumbai Indians (MI) to the fifth position. RCB will have to win the match against Gujarat Titans (GT) to secure their place in the playoffs.
RCB’s opening pair Virat Kohli and Faf Du Plessis got off to a blistering start to overcome the 187-run challenge set for victory by Sunrisers Hyderabad. RCB made full use of the power play and scored an unbeaten 65 in the first six overs. Virat Kohli got off to a strong start scoring runs at a good strike rate.
Faf Du Plessis followed Virat to complete his half-century in 35 balls. Along with this, the pair of Virat-Faf also completed a century partnership. But now RCB needed to increase the run rate. Virat, who is criticized for his strike rate, took responsibility and started hitting aggressively after the 12th over to take RCB to 150 runs. Hyderabad was not able to break RCB’s opening pair.
Virat completed his century by hitting a six when the match was 20 runs off 15 balls. Virat Kohli scored his 6th IPL century in today’s match. But on the very next ball, Virat Kohli was dismissed.
On the other side, Faf Du Plessis, who was unbeaten on 67 off 45 balls, hit a boundary to bring the match to 10 off 10 balls. But he was dismissed for 71 runs on the very next ball by T Natarajan. Natarajan brought the match to seven runs in seven balls. But Maxwell hit a four to bring the match to six balls and three runs. Lastly, RCB won the match by eight wickets.
