AHMEDABAD, India: Batting legend Virat Kohli top-scored for Royal Challengers Bengaluru as they beat Punjab Kings by six runs on Tuesday to win their first Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kohli\u2019s 43 from 35 balls at the top of the order set up Bengaluru for an imposing total of 190-9 which was one big blow too many for a Punjab side that battled until the end, finishing on 184-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 91,000 fans packed into the 132,000-capacity stadium in Ahmedabad, a sea of Bengaluru\u2019s red and Kohli\u2019s jersey number 18 dominating the stands as chants of \u201cKohli, Kohli\u201d rang out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They celebrated noisily when Kohli and RCB clinched victory for the first time in the 18 years of the IPL, their three previous finals having all ended in defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 36-year-old Kohli, one of India\u2019s all-time greats in all formats of the game, collapsed on the ground after the win and then got up to be hugged by his teammates as the crowd celebrated their hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Punjab faltered in their chase after left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya took 2-17 from his four overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shashank Singh hit a valiant 61 not out and finished with three sixes and a four off Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood who defended 29 runs in the final over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hazlewood, who took 3-21 against Punjab in last week\u2019s qualifier win after recovering from a shoulder injury, struck first to send back left-handed Priyansh Arya for 24 with Phil Salt taking a stunning catch at the ropes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Impact substitute Prabhsimran Singh was the next to go off Pandya but the Bengaluru crowd went wild when Romario Shepherd had skipper Shreyas Iyer caught behind for one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 \u2018King Kohli\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pandya stuck again to cut short Australian wicketkeeper-batter Josh Inglis\u2019 stay on 39 and Bengaluru seized momentum and Shashank\u2019s late blitz was not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bengaluru had the perfect start as \u2018King Kohli\u2019 dug in. Far from his fluent best, he only struck three fours during his innings but in the end it turned out to be key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He lost opening partner Salt for 16 when New Zealand quick Kyle Jamieson struck in his first over to have the England batter caught in the deep off Iyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kohli anchored the innings, sharing important partnerships with Mayank Agarwal, who made 24, and then skipper Rajat Patidar, who hit 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Punjab kept chipping away with wickets as leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal got Agarwal and Jamieson trapped the captain lbw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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AHMEDABAD, India: Batting legend Virat Kohli top-scored for Royal Challengers Bengaluru as they beat Punjab Kings by six runs on Tuesday to win their first Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 title. Kohli\u2019s 43 from 35 balls at the top of the order set up Bengaluru for an imposing total of 190-9 which was one big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions\/6276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}