Bangalore Royal Challengers beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 5 wickets

Bangalore Royal Challengers beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 5 wickets to win the 19th match of the second edition of the Indian Premier League at Kingsmead in Durban on Wednesday.

Mark Boucher sealed the victory for his team by hitting a boundary as Bangalore finished at 143/5 in 19.5 overs. He was adjudged the Man of the Match.

Bangalore openers Jacques Kallis and Shreevats Goswami started well playing the toothless Kolkata bowling attack with ease and hardly looked in any trouble, but after the strategic timeout, Kolkata took wickets at regular intervals to take the match to a tense finish.

Brad Hodge took 3 wickets, incuding 2 in one over, to rattle Bangalore, who in the end were taken to victory by an unbeaten 14-run partnership between Boucher and Manish pandey.

Boucher hit a six and a four in his 25-run knock that came off 13 balls.

Hodge dismissed Virat Kohli (19) and Bangalore captain Kevin Pietersen (13) in one over after Goswami and Kallis put up an opening stand of 69 runs.

Goswami top scored for Bnagalore in his 43-run knock that came off 46 balls and was studded with 6 fours.

Earlier, Bangalore restricted Kolkata Knight Riders to 139/6 in 20 overs.

Morne van Wyk top scored for Kolkata with an unbeaten 44 that came off 35 balls and was studded with 4 fours. West Indian captain Chris Gayle hit 6 fours in 37-ball 40.

Gayle was dismissed when he hit a KP Appanna delivery to long on where Shreevats Goswami came running from deep mid-wicket and dived to take the catch.

Anil Kumble took 2 wickets in his spell of 4 overs as Kolkata kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Kolkata were 61/3 in 10 overs.

Batting first after winning the toss, Kolkata got off to a worst start possible as captain Brendon McCullum cut the first delivery of the match by his Bangalore counterpart Kevin Pietersen to backward point for Virat Kohli to take the catch.

Bangalore are playing three frontline spinners, but Pietersen, a part-time spinner, opened the bolwing and struck with his first delivery.

Kumble struck in his first over when trapped Brad Hodge (17) plumb in front of the wicket by a straighter delivery. Hodge hit a six and a four in his 17-run knock that came off 15 balls.

Former captain Sourav Ganguly pulled a Praveen Kumar delivery to deep mid-wicket for Jacuqes Kallis to take the catch in the ninth over.

Teams:

Bangalore Royal Challengers: Kevin Pietersen (Capt.), Shreevats Goswami, Jacques Kallis, Manish Pandey, Roelof van der Werwe, Mark Boucher, Balachandra Akhil, Praveen Kumar, Pankaj Singh, Anil Kumble, KP Appanna.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Brendon McCullum (Capt.), Chris Gayle, Sourav Ganguly, Brad Hodge, Morne van Wyk, Wriddhiman Saha, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ajit Agarkar, Ishant Sharma, Murali Kartik, Ashok Dinda.