Cricket: "Boucher Steals a thriller for Royal Challengers Bangalore"

Match No 19: Royal Challengers Bangalore Vs Kolkata Knight Riders

At last Bangalore Royal Challengers have come out of their loosing streak. They have kept their cool and defeated Kolkata Knight Riders with 5 wickets and one ball to spare at Kingsmead, Durban.

Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to bat first. For Bangalore Kevin pieterson opened the bowling and to Kolkata Knight Riders horror he removed Maccullum of the very first ball. His decision of opening the bowling proved fruitful. Hodge and Gayle then played sensibly and moved the score to 45 of 6 overs. Kumble trapped hodge plumb in front and Ganguly's dodged innings came to an end when he came a timely catch to kallis of praveen kumar. Soon after the strategic break Gayle was out to young Appanna before scoring 40 of 37 balls with 6 fours. Later Van wyk scored a solid 43 of 35 balls with 4 fours and made sure that Kolkata scored a good 139 of their 20 overs. For Bangalore Kumble was the pick of the bowler with 2 wickets against his name.

Bangalore Royal Challengers had a slow but an excellent start when they were 65 with no loss at their strategic break. After their strategic break match slipped away from bangalore and kolkatta made a strong comeback into the match. Bangalore lost Goswami(43) and Kallis (23) in consecutive overs to hodge and sharma respectively. Pieterson and Kohli tried to accelerate the score and where both victims to hodge spin. Inspite of loosing wickets at other end Boucher kept one end intact and cooly took Bangalore home with 5 wickets and 1 ball to spare. Boucher made 25 of 13 balls with 2 fours and 1 six.

Man of the Matchwas awarded to MV Boucher for his cool 25 of 13 balls with 2 fours and 1 huge six.

Scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 143 for 5 (Goswami 43, Hodge 3-29) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 139 for 6 (van Wyk 43*, Kumble 2-16) by five wickets