Skipper Faf du Plessis led from the front with an unbeaten half-century while Dinesh Karthik provided a late flourish as Royal Challengers Bangalore started after 192/3 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League here on Sunday.
Du Plessis seized the initiative after hitting eight fours and two sixes in his 50-ball unbeaten 73, his third half-century this season and losing his opening partner Virat Kohli on the first ball of the match.
The South African legend, along with Rajat Patidar (48 from 38 balls; 4×4, 2×6), laid a solid foundation with a third-wicket partnership of 105 runs off 73 balls.
But the Hyderabad bowlers, led by spinners Jagdish Suchit (2/30) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0/34), slowed things down a bit in the middle overs before Dinesh Karthik took the final over (25) to post a total. run).
The Indian veteran wicketkeeper-batsman hit four sixes, three of them in succession, followed by a boundary in the last over against Afghanistan debutant Fazlhaq Farooqui, getting in the way of his amusing cameo.
Hyderabad had a solitary moment of glory, the first ball of the game when Kohli (0) was dismissed for his third golden duck this season, sixth overall in the IPL.
Ending his worst IPL ever – 216 runs in 12 innings at 19.6 – Kohli struck a soft-out with a drifting half-volley on his pads, and the star batsman managed to flick it straight to Williamson at short midwicket.
After that it was all about RCB as du Plessis and the young Patidar seized the momentum with their counter-attack approach.
Patidar put on his best while the captain was in complete control in the afternoon heat of the Wankhede as he took just 31 deliveries for his fifty-plus stand.
Hyderabad’s young speed merchant Umran Malik bowled back from length on a slow pitch and the batting pair had an offer to clean bowl him for 20 runs in his first over.
The well-established Patidar though missed his half-century by two runs, becoming Suchit’s second victim in the 13th over.
Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had won the toss and opted to bat against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Indian Premier League on 8 May.
RCB did not make any changes in their playing 11 while SRH replaced Shreyas Gopal and Sean Abbott with Fazlhaq Farooqui and J. Suchit was given a place.
Teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson (c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Shashank Singh, Jagdish Suchit, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Fazlhaq Farooqui, Umran Malik.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed, Vanindu Hasranga, Harshal Patel, Mohammad Siraj, Josh Hazlewood.