Phil Salt came up with an outrageous display of ball striking as Delhi Capitals kept themselves alive in the Indian Premier League with a thumping seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday. Virat Kohli (55 off 56) completed his ‘homecoming’ with a landmark fifty before Mahipal Lomror (54 not out off 29) came up with a career-best knock to take Royal Challengers Bangalore to 181 for four. Needing to win every game from here on to have a shot at a play-off berth, Delhi’s overseas batters played fearlessly to gun down the total in 16.4 overs.
Besides Salt’s sensational 87 off 45 balls, David Warner (22 off 14), Mitchell Marsh (26 off 17) and Rilee Rossouw (29 not out off 21) produced timely cameos.
It was Delhi’s second consecutive win and they need to win their remaining four games while RCB suffered their fifth loss in 10 matches. Salt and Warner came out all guns blazing as Delhi raced to 60 for no loss in five overs. The fifth over in which Mohammad Siraj conceded 19 runs gave Delhi the initial advantage and RCB could not fight back from there. The premier India fast bowler could have avoided a heated exchange with Salt after the latter smashed him for couple of sixes and a four. The flat six over extra cover off Siraj stood out in Salt’s special innings.