Nitish Rana removed AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli in consecutive deliveries to help the Kolkata Knight Riders restrict the Royal Challengers Bangalore to 176-7. 

The part-time spinner bowled one over and took the two most dangerous scalps on the RCB team sheet. Rana was brought in to slow down the over rate and he did so in fine fashion.

RCB were pulling away. On 127-2, they looked set to post a mammoth total.

De Villiers (44 off 23 balls) and Kohli (31 off 33 balls) were pulling away from the hosts. The pair looked dangerous with De Villiers charged up. He smashed four sixes and a four before clobbering Rana’s short delivery on the first ball of his over for another maximum. Rana, however, never pulled out of the battle and he bowled an identical short ball on off stump, sending De Villiers after it. This time the Proteas batsman mistimed it and Mitchell Johnson took a swirling catch to end the 66-run partnership.

He followed this up with a yorker the following delivery that crept through Kohli’s defences and crashed onto his middle stump. This brought RCB back into the tie at 127-4, with just over five overs remaining.

RCB ended up losing the match by four wickets.

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