Royal Bengal Tigers, powered by a brilliant knock by its captain Craig McMillan and an equally fine performance by the bowlers, tonight registered an emphatic 35-run win against Delhi Giants in their ICL T20 encounter at the Lal Bahadur Shastri stadium in Hyderabad on Thursday night.
Chasing a challenging target of 172, the Delhi team faltered right from the start, losing openers D Benkenstein (3) in the third over followed by Avishka Gunawardene (25) in the seventh over.
Delhis chase never took off as it kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
Sujay Tarafdar claimed the wickets of both the openers, while Upul Chandana, who has become the mainstay of the Bengal bowling in the current ICL season, went on to scalp the crucial wickets of Delhi captain Marvan Atapattu and Paul Nixon.
Other bowlers Andre Adams and Eklak Ahmid did the rest of the job by taking the wickets of batsmen like S Abbas Ali, Abhinav Bali and Jai P Yadav.
The highest individual score for the Delhi team was made by Gunawardenes (25) and it tells the story of the team's poor showing during the chase. Jai Prakash Yadav made the second highest total of 24.
The Delhi team managed to cobble up 136 in the stipulated 20 overs losing eight wickets while 11 runs came in the form of extras.
Earlier, the Royal Bengal Tigers piled up 171 runs thanks to a superb 69-run knock off 40 balls by captain Craig McMillan.
McMillan's innings, which included four sixes and seven boundaries, helped his team make 171 though the top order batsmen failed to make it big.
Openers Deep Dasgupta and Hamish Marshall, who gave a steady start to the innings, were out for 26 and 23 respectively.
Marshall entertained the spectators with his two lofty sixes and two boundaries. Dasgupta hit four boundaries. The third batsman Abhishek Jhunjhunwala was out for naught.
McMillan, who came in next, put the innings back on track with his fine innings that included three sixes and a boundary that came in the 16th over off Abhinav Bali.
Of course, he was sent to the pavilion by Bali in the same over to a beautiful catch by Marvan Atapattu. South African Lance Klusener and young Rohan Gavaskar chipped in with a valuable contribution of 22 and 12 runs respectively.
Andre Adams and M Diwakar remained not out on seven and one respectively at the completion of 20 overs.
For the Delhi team, Ali Murtaza claimed two wickets, while Shalabh Srivastava, Shane Bond and Abhinav Bali took one wicket each.
McMillan was adjudged the Man of the Match for his wonderful innings.
In their previous matches, Royal Bengal Tigers thrashed the Lahore Badshahs by eight wickets while Delhi Giants beat Ahmedabad Rockets.
