SRH come back to restrict RCB to 166

Led by Trent Boult's 3 for 36, Sunrisers Hyderabad staged a strong comeback in the second half of the innings and restricted Royal Challengers Bangalore to 166 despite AB de Villiers' 28-ball 46 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday night.

However, it was Ravi Bopara at the heart of SRH's revival. Bopara the bowler is not someone who you would put your money on in a crucial situation. However, his dibbly-dobblies were responsible in the reining-in of RCB. At 93 for 2 and with Virat Kohli and de Villiers at the crease in the 12th over, RCB were looking good for a big total when Bopara bowled back-to-back wicket-taking deliveries.

De Villiers had already hit the England allrounder for fours off the first two balls of the 12th over and not giving another was what must have preoccupied him. Once De Villiers was off strike off the fourth ball, Bopara accounted for Kohli and Mandeep Singh to bring SRH in the ascendancy for the first time in the match.

Kohli made 41 off 37 balls but wasn't at his best and got out just when he had started playing his strokes. Boult must have felt robbed when the umpire denied him what looked like a straight lbw against Kohli, who was on five, in the third over of the match.

Boult's first spell of three overs wasn't what one would expect from a bowler who was the joint-highest wicket-taker at the World Cup. He erred in length several times and once even fell down in his follow-through. Boult's ineffectual spell meant Chris Gayle and Kohli raced away to 43 in 5.2 overs. It needed former India bowler Praveen Kumar, playing his first game this season, to remove Gayle for 21. Karn Sharma accounted for Dinesh Karthik for 9 not long after that, and then Bopara bowled that double-wicket over to buoy SRH's spirits. However, de Villiers' pacy innings gave RCB a decent total to bowl at.

Boult made up for his poor first spell with the wickets of de Villiers, Sean Abbott and Harshal Patel in the penultimate over and played a big role in RCB being at least 15 runs short. Bhuvneshwar Kumar too shone in the last over and picked up two wickets to end RCB's innings in 19.5 overs.

Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 166 all out in 19.5 overs (De Villiers 46; Kohli 41, Gayle 21; Boult 3/36, Bhuvneshwar 2/30) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad