Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Kings XI Punjab in a pulsating game at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore, by eight wickets and with an over to spare. This, despite the Punjab team having scored 203/3 in their 20 overs. 
Kings XI Punjab won the toss and decided to bat first. They had gone in with a single change to their line-up; Ramesh Powar, who had gone for 16 runs in the only over he bowled was replaced by Bipul Sharma. Bangalore, on the other hand, needed to get in Mark Boucher into the side in place of Sreevats Goswami, and in order to do that, they replaced Reolof van der Merwe with Vinay Kumar. >
Praveen Kumar and Dale Steyn began rather well as they got the ball to swing around on a pitch was described as a ‘sticky’ one. In fact, after three overs, the Punjab side was 18/0 and the openers, Bopara and Manvinder Bisla struggling to get the big shots out of their closet.
It took a bowling change – Kallis replaced Steyn – for Bisla to smack the first six and then, it was carnage in Kallis’ next over. Bisla smoked a six over third man again and there were two other fours in the same over to end the Powerplay with 50/0.
If the Bangalore side thought that the run-rate would have gone down after the fielding restrictions were taken out, then they were mistaken. Anil Kumble was greeted with a 13-run over, and then came a 14-run over off Vinay Kumar. Bisla brought about his 50 off 36 runs and by the time the first wicket fell, the Bangalore side was 129/1 and with six overs to spare.
This wicket did not slow the scoring down with Bopara taking over from Bisla and in the partnership with Mahela Jayawardene added 61 runs off the last four overs, including a 19-run last over by Praveen Kumar.
In reply to this, the Royal Challengers were expected to be in much trouble but gave a good fist of it to begin with. Jacques Kallis, who had scored a half century in the first game, joined hands with a new opener in Manish Pandey and the pair did their bit in the chase. 32 came off the first four overs, while the next two from Yusuf Abdullah and Irfan Pathan went for 29 runs to propel the chase.
It was the introduction of Piyush Chawla that not only slowed the proceedings down, but also got their first wicket, as Pandey tried to swat the ball away to the leg-side but only got a top-edge.
Bangalore changed their batting around and sent in Robi Uthappa at the number three slot, and this proved to be a master move. At this stage, the Royal Challengers needed someone to accelerate the scoring given that their asking rate was mounting up to the realms of almost 12 runs an over.
Uthappa started with a couple of boundaries off Chawla and all of sudden took on both, Abdullah (14 runs) and Sreesanth (25 runs) to bring the game back on even keel. He soon brought up his fifty off only 19 deliveries, which was the second quickest in the competition, and despite getting out immediately afterwards had brought the side close to a win.
At this stage, the home team needed 61 to win off six overs, and needed that one big over from somewhere. Kallis, who was at the other end, slowly biding his time, took over from Uthappa, whereas Virat Kohli did his bit as well. Of course, Kohli was helped by a dropped catch by Mohammad Kaif that was parried away for a six, while new-comer Bipul Sharma went for 23 runs off his second over to give Bangalore the game.