{"id":571238,"date":"2026-03-29T03:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T03:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571238\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T03:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T03:09:10","slug":"royal-challengers-bengaluru-defeat-sunrisers-hyderabad-virat-kohli-fifty-travis-head-highlights-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571238\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad, Virat Kohli fifty, Travis head, highlights, video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Virat Kohli hit an unbeaten 69 as defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru thrashed Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets in the IPL season opener on Saturday, after a tribute in memory of the 11 fans who died in a stampede last year.<\/p>\n<p>The fans were honoured with 11 empty seats and a minute\u2019s silence ahead of the game, while the players wore black armbands at Bengaluru\u2019s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Bengaluru won their first IPL title in 18 attempts in the 2025 edition, but a victory parade turned tragic outside their stadium.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Watch Live &amp; Free coverage of the 2026 Marsh Sheffield Shield with Kayo Freebies | <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au\/en-AU\/competition\/Competition:6thd74h9oa0pm8qx15hhzfrq6?pg=cricket&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkcricket-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-cri-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Register free now &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, a big crowd welcomed the home team with the loudest roar reserved for Kohli, who steered the team\u2019s successful chase of 202 in just 15.4 overs. It was the fastest 200+ run chase in IPL history.<\/p>\n<p>Kohli, who plays just the 50-over format for India after retiring from Test and T20 internationals, hit five fours and five sixes in his 38-ball knock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhenever I come back to play, it\u2019s 120 percent. I\u2019m not coming back underprepared, in fact, the extra rest helps me mentally freshen up,\u201d Kohli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd as long as you\u2019re physically fit and mentally excited, both those things come together nicely. You don\u2019t want to just hold on to a spot; you want to keep performing and keep putting in the work for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Royal Challengers Bengaluru&#8217;s Indian cricket player Virat Kohli. (Photo by AFPSource: AFP<\/p>\n<p>Hyderabad posted 9-201 after being put in to bat first as stand-in-skipper Ishan Kishan top-scored with 80 from 38 balls, with eight fours and five sixes.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand\u2019s RCB import Jacob Duffy made an instant impact on his IPL debut to return figures of 3-22 from his four overs.<\/p>\n<p>Duffy rattled the top-order, taking the key wickets of openers Abhishek Sharma (7) and Travis Head (11).<\/p>\n<p>Kishan steadied the innings in a fourth-wicket partnership of 97 with South Africa\u2019s Heinrich Klaasen, who made 31.<\/p>\n<p>England\u2019s Phil Salt took a stunning one-handed catch in the deep after covering lot of ground to dismiss Kishan off Abhinandan Singh.<\/p>\n<p>Bengaluru lost opener Salt, for eight, early in the chase but impact substitute Devdutt Padikkal hit a string of boundaries in his 26-ball 61.<\/p>\n<p>Padikkal put on 101 runs with Kohli, who hit some excellent shots including a straight six that hit the sight screen.<\/p>\n<p>He finished the game with a six and three fours in successive balls to launch RCB\u2019s title defence in style.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll be a little more cautious with the bowling, areas where we need to execute, and we might be stronger from the next game,\u201d said Kishan.<\/p>\n<p>Kishan is leading Hyderabad in place of Australia\u2019s Pat Cummins, who is recovering from a back injury and is expected to play later in the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virat Kohli hit an unbeaten 69 as defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru thrashed Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-571238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}