The Royal Challengers Bangalore choked at a crucial juncture to gift the Chennai Super Kings the final playoff spot of IPL 2012. The Deccan Chargers beat the Bengaluru franchise by nine runs at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium to register their fourth win of the season. Dale Steyn was the architect of RCB’s destruction as he led DC’s charge and ended up with figures of three for eight in his four overs.

Chasing 133 for the win, RCB’s Chris Gayle went on a rampage right from the first ball he faced. Manpreet Gony was smashed for 24 runs in the second over of the innings. But Steyn still had a few shocks left in his armoury. The pacer first softened Gayle (27 off 10 balls) with a bouncer and then got him to nick one back onto his stumps. Tillakaratne Dilshan (4) was the next to go, after he was caught plumb in front by Steyn. The two early wickets ensured that the momentum had shifted in the home side’s favour. RCB suffered a further blow after Saurabh Tiwary was forced to retire hurt after stretching his hamstring.

The Royal Challengers were finding it difficult to cope with the pressure, which reached a crescendo in the 10th over. Amit Mishra bowled a brilliant over in which he dismissed both AB de Villiers (4) and Mayank Agarwal (1). The quick wickets forced Tiwary to return to the field and continue his partnership with Kohli. The duo put on a 46-run stand to give RCB a glimmer of hope. But Kohli’s (42) aggression got the better of him after he smashed the ball straight down Gony’s throat off an Ashish Reddy delivery. Zaheer Khan (0) walked in at 103 for five, and couldn’t contribute to RCB’s cause. With 22 to win off 12 balls, Tiwary succumbed under the pressure to hole out after making 30. The pressure was too much to handle for the RCB tail as DC won the match by nine runs.

Earlier, Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to field first. This decision immediately paid dividends after Zaheer Khan sent Shikhar Dhawan (5) back to the dugout in the first over. Fellow opener Akshath Reddy (7) was sent packing in the fourth over after nicking it to de Villiers off a Vinay Kumar delivery. The Chargers made an all too familiar poor start to their innings and RCB made further inroads into the already brittle DC line-up. Prasanth Parameswaran got one to bounce awkwardly as Cameron White (1) could only scoop it to Mayank Agarwal. At 20 for three, skipper Kumar Sangakkara along with JP Duminy tried to steady the ship. But Sangakkara fell to a Muttiah Muralitharan delivery after making 15.

Parthiv Patel and Duminy continued the rebuilding process with some steady play. The left-handed duo put on an impressive 71-run partnership with Duminy (74) being the main aggressor. The South African’s innings eventually ended after he smashed a Zaheer Khan full toss straight to long-on. The Chargers eventually ended up with a modest total of 132 for seven.

Scorecard

Man-of-the-match: Dale Steyn for pegging back the RCB run-chase at regular intervals and clocking match-winning figures of 4-0-8-3