On this day in 2016: Kohli-de Villiers’ 229-run partnership powered RCB to 248 – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Two batting maestros Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers have played for the Bangalore-based franchise for years. The duo has hit the front page many times while sharing the 22 yards. Among their several highlighted moments, one of the most memorable ones came on 14 May, 2016, during the Indian Premier League clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Lions at Bangalore’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The duo fetched a new record of reaching the feat of the highest T20 stand for the second wicket and also the biggest stand for all T20s at the time.

File image of Virat Kohli and AB de Villers. SportzPics

Batting first, Royal Challengers Bangalore lost an early wicket of Chris Gayle in the fourth over, After Gayle’s dismissal, South African batter AB de Villiers joined skipper Virat Kohli to start the show. De Villiers didn’t take much time to get cemented on the crease. After a couple of overs, he started to smash boundaries at regular intervals. The destruction was initiated after the 10th over of RCB’s innings. The duo showed no mercy to the Gujarat bowlers. While de Villiers took charge of hitting the boundaries, Kohli assisted him in rotating the strike.

AB de Villiers fetched his half-century playing just 25 deliveries. In the 16th over, he hammered Praveen Kumar with 23 runs and completed his ton off 43 balls.

However, the Virat show was yet to happen. The 18th and 19th overs turned out to be the costliest. Dwayne Bravo and Shivil Kaushik gave away 30 runs in each of the overs. Virat Kohli fired four maximums and one boundary against Kaushik to reach 95 before the final over. On the first delivery of the final over, ABD passed the strike to Kohli. Following a two, Kohli went for back-to-back sixes and recorded his third century of the season in 53 deliveries. However, he had to leave for the pavilion before one ball to the innings break. Thus, the RCB pair registered a 229-run partnership to help their side put up a mammoth 248 runs on board. While Kohli scored 109 runs in 55 balls, de Villiers remained not out with an explosive 52-ball 129. Chasing down 249 runs, Gujarat Lions’ innings came to an end for 104 runs and RCB relished the victory by 144 runs.

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