Bangalore: An allround performance from Kolkata Knight Riders helped them to their first win of the IPL 2012 season against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday. Batting first KKR posted a total of 165/8 replying to which RCB fell well short by 42 runs to end their innings at 123/9 at Bangalore. The start of the match was delayed by a minor explosion due to an electric short circuit and Bangalore crowd must have expected the same from their stalwart Chris Gayle. But L Balaji and Jacques Kallis had other plans as they ran through their hosts top order reducing them to 33/5 halfway down their innings.

Balaji was the pick of the bowlers with his haul of 4/18. The delivery of the day was fittingly bowled to AB de Villiers who was clean bowled at the score of 10. It was an angled delivery and de Villiers went for a defensive stroke but the ball straightened up to remove his bails. Kallis, who bowled just two overs took opened the floodgates for RCB by first dismissing Cheteshwar Pujara in his first over and then removed explosive Chris Gayle in his second over.

None of Bangalore’s batsmen made any substantial contribution with the bat, their highest scorer was Vinay Kumar (25) who also bowled decently claiming two wickets while giving away just 18 runs in his four overs. It seemed they were not able to recover from the early shocks they were subjected to by the KKR bowlers.

Gautam Gambhir and Jacques Kallis provided a blistering start to the Kolkata innings by scoring 60 runs in 6.1 overs. Gambhir was the more explosive of the two as he struck the fastest fifty of the IPL 5 in just 28 deliveries. Kallis dismissal brought Manvinder Bisla to the crease who struck three sixes and two fours in his 46 off just 29 balls as KKR moved to 123/1 from 13 overs.

However come fourteenth over and their innings went off track as they started losing wickets in quick succession. Their top three batsmen scored 122 runs between them and their next five added just 15 runs with an interesting sequence of scoring that read 1, 2,3,4 and 5 (from fourth to eight number respectively). At one stage they were looking good to score anywhere between 180-190 but they ended on a par score of 165 runs. They must have felt they were 20-25 runs short. However, the scored proved too much for the Royals as they lost the match by 42 runs.