38 off 18 balls - The situation looks quite comfortable for the team chasing the target but during the Indian Premier League match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab, the scenario was not so straight forward.

RCB were going great guns but with the departure of Virat Kohli, the run rate slowed down and they needed a good over from AB De Villiers and Marcus Stoinis to clinch their first win of the tournament.

In the 18th over, Andrew Tye was handed the ball and it was clear that the next six balls will play a major role in deciding the result of the encounter. The first ball was pitched outside off and Stoinis just opened the face of the bat and it raced through backward point for a boundary.

The next ball was on his pads and Stoinis did not make any mistake once again as he scored another boundary through backward of square, past fine leg.

However, Tye fought back well as he pitched the third ball a bit short and Stoinis completely mistimed his shot. The ball was in the air for a long time but Murugan Ashwin made a mess of the catch. 

It did not take long for them to regret that miss as De Villiers slammed the very next ball for a massive six over fine-leg.The last two balls of the over produced just three runs but the batsmen got 18 runs in total from the six balls and that provided the perfect foundation for the duo to launch the late onslaught.

They scored freely against Mohammed Shami and Sarfaraz Khan and it was enough to guide them towards their first win in this year’s Indian Premier League.

First Published: Apr 14, 2019 01:00 IST