Bangalore, May 5: This was a different Sreesanth on display. He was charged up, and his bowling was fiery as ever. But the histrionics were missing, as were the random stares. Things do seem to have turned around for the pacer after slap-gate. In the last match against the Kolkata Knight Riders, he returned figures of 4-0-25-2, and today, against the Bangalore Royal Challengers, he was even better. He took as many wickets but conceded just 16, helping Kings XI Punjab notch up an easy six-wicket victory.

Surprisingly, on the morning of the game, Sreesanth told The Indian Express that he was not feeling too well and would bowl well within himself. There was none of that when he walked up to the top his mark though. By the end of his first over, the first of the game as well, he had all but decided the fate of the match.

Double blow

He started off with a couple of out-swingers and an inswinger against Wasim Jaffer, before getting one to dart off the seam. Jaffer didn’t move his feet, hung his bat out and edged it through to the ‘keeper. Next ball, Cameron White was gone, playing for the outswinger only to find the stumps shattered by one that came in sharply.

In fact, he should have picked up a third, but James Hopes dropped Virat Kohli when the batsman was on 28. Sreesanth’s first spell read 3-0-9-2 and the wait for the inevitable had begun.

Rahul Dravid (66) and Virat Kohli (34) tried to rebuild the innings with a 54-run partnership for the fourth wicket. But Kohli’s departure triggered off a middle and lower-order collapse. Leggie Piyush Chawla was impressive once again, picking up three wickets, including two in his third over. Their innings folded up for 126 19.2 overs.

Dravid was the only batsman who could challenge the bowlers, unleashing a flurry of boundaries towards the end of his knock. In the seventeenth over, he hit VRV Singh for three fours and then, in the bowler’s next over, he hit a six over extra-cover. Just when it looked like he might stretch the total closer to the 150-run mark, he fell, trying a repeat of the shot that had carried over the ropes. This time, it only reached Mahela Jayawardene at third man.

Unwanted record

Bangalore didn’t need to look very far to realise what had gone wrong in their innings — the five ducks on the scoreboard meant they had bagged an unwanted IPL record.

The chase was always going to be a cakewalk. Zaheer Khan did raise their hopes briefly when he sent back James Hopes in the second over of the innings, but Shaun Marsh (39) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (31) scored swiftly to put on 54 runs for the second wicket and thwart the hosts’s hopes. Jayawardene and Irfan Pathan remained unbeaten on 17 runs each to see the Mohali side through.