Kohli, Josh Hazlehood lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 11-run win over Rajasthan Royals

The Royals, on the other hand, suffered their fifth consecutive defeat this season, and their campaign this year is in serious jeopardy.

RR, though, had a positive start to the day, winning the toss and putting RCB into bat. The men in red began cautiously, with Phil Salt not being able to get a move on. Kohli, on the other hand, was at his finest best, and together they managed to stitch a partnership of 61 seeing through the powerplay overs.

Salt fell soon after, but his replacement at the crease, Devdutt Padikkal, continued his rich vein of form, scoring at a brisk rate. Kohli and Padikkal increased the tempo to take RCB to 156 by the end of the 15th over.

A mini collapse saw RCB loose 3 wickets while adding just 7 runs, Sandeep Sharma picking up 2 out of those 3 wickets. It appeared for a while that they may fall well short of a par score until Tim David and Jitesh Sharma provided a well-needed flourish at the end by adding a quick-fire 42 runs.

RCB finished at 205/6, carrying the momentum into the halfway break. The RCB batters were severe on all the RR bowlers, especially on Tushar Deshpande, who was taken to cleaners with 2 overs for 36 runs, with only Archer and Hasaranga managing to keep things a bit quiet while managing a wicket each.  For RCB, Kohli top-scored with 70 and was ably supported by Padikkal, who scored 50 runs on his own.

In response, the Royals got off to an explosive start with their young guns, especially Yashasvi Jaiswal, blazing away. For a while, it even seemed that they might chase the target down with a couple of overs to spare.

RR looked to be in cruise mode, reaching 110 in just 9 overs despite losing their openers and a target of 96 in 11 overs, seemed just a mere formality, especially with in-form Nitish Rana and captain Riyan Parag seemingly in full flow.

The introduction of Krunal Pandya caused a brain fade, and Parag fell trying to go for a big heave off his 1st ball.  Nevertheless, despite continuing to lose wickets at regular intervals, RR still looked like they might still pull it off, needing just 18 off 12 balls, with Dhruv Jurel and Shubham Dubey looking to close the game out.

Hazelwood, who had already taken a couple of wickets, produced a gem of an over, conceding just 1 run and getting rid of the dangerous Dhruv Jurel and Jofra Archer off consecutive balls, finishing with match-winning figures of 4/33.

RR might still have had some hope going into the final over, needing 17 to win, but with Shubham Dubey holing out in the deep in the 1st ball, it became just a formality for RCB to close out the game, winning by 11 runs.

(With inputs from IPL website)