Courtesy: BCCI/IPL/X
On Friday, March 28, the highly awaited Southern derby in the Indian Premier League (IPL) went the way of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) as they defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for the first-time at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai since 2008. During this big match, Indian cricketing superstar Virat Kohli of RCB was struck on the head in a rare occurrence by a Matheesha Pathirana bouncer, and he responded to the CSK pacer’s hostility with a six on the next ball before fuming in anger at him.
It was the first ball of the 11th over of the RCB innings when Virat Kohli missed the pull stroke on a Matheesha Pathirana bouncer, and the ball hit his helmet before the physio came out to check on him. The next ball from the Sri Lankan was again towards his head area, but this time around, the former Indian captain was ready for it, and he deposited it over the square fine leg boundary for a six.
After playing the stroke, Kohli gave an angry look to Pathirana as the CSK pacer walked back to his bowling mark in search of the prized scalp of the RCB opener. The next ball from him was in the fuller length area at the stumps, giving the Indian batter the chance to whip it away towards the deep midwicket boundary for four runs, putting an exclamation point on their short but impactful battle.
RCB emerged victorius by 50 runs against CSK at Chepauk in IPL 2025
Ultimately, Virat Kohli was dismissed by Noor Ahmad for a pedestrian 31 off 30 with two fours and a maximum, but RCB captain Rajat Patidar played a fantastic innings of 51 runs in just 32 balls with four fours and three maximums, to ensure that his team reached an above par total of 196/7. In the defence of the runs, the RCB bowling attack was clinical from start to finish, led by the opening bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood before Yash Dayal chipped-in with a couple of crucial wickets.
Liam Livingstone also took two wickets in the latter phase of CSK innings when they were essentially out of the contest, losing it by 50 runs after being restricted to 146/8 despite a late flurry of boundaries from MS Dhoni, who batted at number nine.
