Devdutt Padikkal stroked five fours in his 23* from 11 balls to help the Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 76-1 in the Power Play after the Gujarat Titans chose to bowl first in the Tata IPL Qualifying match at the Himachal Pradesh Stadium in Dharamsala on Tuesday.
The match pits the teams which finished first and second in the final league table against each other with the winner progressing straight to the final and the loser playing the winner of the Eliminator match between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Rajasthan Royals.
Venkatesh Iyer gave RCB a flying start with 19 from just seven balls before lofting Kagiso Rabada to long on where Shubman Gill held a smart, running catch but Virat Kohli (34* from 18 balls) and Padikkal continued to lay a strong platform.
Match report to follow....
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU: Venkatesh Iyer, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wkt), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jacob Duffy, Josh Hazlewood, Rasikh Salam Dar
Impact Subs: Romario Shepherd, Suyash Sharma, Kanishk Chouhan, Abhinandan Singh, Jordan Cox
GUJARAT TITANS: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (captain), Jos Buttler (wkt), Washington Sundar, Nishant Sindhu, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
Impact subs: Rahul Tewatia, Glenn Phillips, Anuj Rawat, Kumar Kushagra, Sai Kishore