Royal Challengers Bangalore have extended their winning streak to three matches, while Sunrisers Hyderabad have suffered a second successive defeat. This defeat will not change the position of the table-toppers, neither will it affect their possible finish in the top-two.

However, this win has certainly changed a lot of things for RCB as they have finally moved up to the fifth place from the seventh position which has been a home to them for quite a long time throughout the tournament.

Five teams are now contending for the two remaining playoff berths and except for third-placed Kolkata Knight Riders, the four other teams are on the same page with six wins from 13 games and all of them are in a must-win situation ahead of their last clashes of the tournament.

RCB, after a miserable start to their campaign, have bounced back greatly and their desperation for a win was clear from the very beginning when they started the game against SRH at Bengaluru, on Thursday (May 18).

An early strike from Sandeep Sharma, which sent Parthiv Patel back to the hut, only made things worse for the Hyderabad-based franchise as RCB now had two of their finest batsmen on the crease at their disposal.

The South African went all guns blazing against the arguably best bowling line-up in the tournament and the dismissal of the RCB captain on 12 rusn only unleashed more miseries for the visitors. Following Kohli’s exit at the hands of Rashid Khan, Moeen Ali and de Villiers shared a 107-run partnership and set the stage to throw the opponents under a truckload of runs.

Moeen launched a breathtaking assault plundering six sixes and two boundaries. Rashid Khan removed both Moeen and de Villiers in the 15^th over after they scored 65 and 69 respectively, facing 30-odd deliveries each. And then Colin de Grandhomme and Sarfaraz Khan hammered the final nails in the coffin with their quick-fire innings.

Grandhomme’s 17-ball 40 was followed by Sarfaraz’s cameo of 22 off 8. The latter remained not out while the former was removed by Siddarth Kaul who had also picked up the wicket of Mandeep Singh before he could have any impact on RCB’s batting innings.

RCB registered a total of 218 runs for 6 wickets and provided a comfort zone to its bowlers who were eventually able to scalp only three of SRH’s wickets and conceded 200+ runs but didn’t let the match slip away.

Kane Williamson’s 81-run innings alongside Manish Pandey’s unbeaten knock of 62 powered SRH to post 204 runs on the scoreboard and yet they fell 14 runs short in the end.

While all the other bowlers were hit for more than 10 runs an over, Yuzvendra Chahal and Umesh Yadav kept the flow of runs in check and allowed only 59 runs in the 8 overs that they had bowled. The latter remained wicket-less while Chahal got one scalp to his name as Shikhar Dhawan was caught and bowled on 18.

Moeen also came up with his all-round efforts and was able to remove another opener—Alex Hales on 37. The SRH captain returned to the pavilion in the last over when Mohammad Siraj put an end to a 135-run stand that Williamson had built along with Pandey.

SRH will take on another win-hungry side—KKR in their next match on May 19 and RCB will face another playoff candidate Rajasthan Royals in a do-or-die situation on the same day.