Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and elected to field first, Virat Kohli said he would have batted first. The skipper walked out to open the innings with Parthiv Patel and looked to be in good touch from the word go. RCB were humming along at a fair clip and dominated proceedings in the powerplay.

Rahane introduced Shreyas Gopal immediately after six overs and the leggie landed the killer blow. A googly bowled on off stump, Kohli went back looking to cut, the ball spun back in sharply and hit his pads. The finger went up and Gopal took care of Kohli for the second successive time in his career. (Full scorecard)

He was not done yet. AB de Villiers took guard, played a scoop over the keeper and looked to be in the groove. He fired a flat googly which stopped on AB, as he tried to jam his bat down, but ended up punching the ball to Gopal who took a smart tumbling catch on his follow through.

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Shimron Hetmyer took guard and he struggled against the spinning ball. He was on strike against Gopal, who landed the perfect length ball which spun across Hetmyer who could only hang his bat out, the ball took the edge and Buttler completed a simple catch.

The leggie broke the back of RCB’s middle order and the visitors could never recover as they stuttered along to 158 in their alloted 20 overs. Gopal finished with 3 wickets for 12 runs in his quota of 4 overs.

“I still say I’m fortunate and lucky to get such big wickets. As a youngster, it’s not going to come everyday and it’s one of my biggest moments. I was more fortunate and our plans worked today. We created a lot of pressure in the first 6 overs. They didn’t get 65-70. They had to make runs off me, I had better chance of taking wickets. Just goes on gut feeling, nothing planned as such. It’s good to have few different balls up your sleeve and be able to execute. We (wrist spinners) get to spin the ball both sides and that’s probably an advantage. It’s about bowling better areas and sticking to plans,” he said at the post-match press conference where he also adjudged man of the match.

First Published: Apr 03, 2019 00:08 IST