It was a track that helped batting and it will be an understatement to make. In the end, the one man who made all the difference was Gayle, who smacked a century at a strike-rate of 200. Delhi replied well and were in with a chance till those four overs from Zaheer and Vinay Kumar pegged the Daredevils back. 30s from Rao at the top and Russell down the order sandwiched a superb return to form for Taylor, but in the end his 26-ball 55 was not enough to see the side through to a win.
Bangalore now have 17 points from 15 games, the same as Chennai, who are done with their engagements now. A win in their last game against Deccan will see them through to the playoffs. Delhi remain on 20 and have already made it to the playoffs.
Presentation
Kohli: Exciting game of cricket, good pitch to bat on. Batting with Chris is a wonderful experience, lot of them could have taken my head off at the non-striker's end, we need to win the last game to make it to the playoffs.
Jayawardene: He is in tremendous form, especially on a small ground like this, it was always going to be difficult to contain them. Still we could chase it down, unfortunately we could not. Morne was the only player rested, Viru was sick, we needed to give Russell a chance. We have played enough T20 cricket to realise this happens and we need to just try and improve from here.
Gayle, man of the match: Secret behind those sixes, good balance and it helps to have a pitch where the ball comes up to the bat, it is natural, trying not to move around, couple of innings have me moving around which does not help. Thanks to Virat Kohli for his support at the other end. Maiden over is okay, as long as I am there till the end, it helps to get the runs.
12th man of the match award for Gayle here and he has been Bangalore's biggest trump card since he came over to their side. That is it then from me, Suneer Chowdhary, it has been an exciting day of cricket, in the first game, the ball did all things it could in a T20 game and made scoring rather difficult. Only for the bat to dominate in the second match with more than 400 runs coming in the game.
I will be back for tomorrow's game between the Deccan Chargers and Rajasthan Royals, till then, have a great time!