Blazing knocks by Dinesh Karthik and Shahbaz Ahmed helped Royal Challengers Bangalore fight back and defeat Rajasthan Royals by four wickets in their Indian Premier League 2022 clash at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday.

Chasing a target of 170 for victory, RCB were reduced to 87/5 after 12.3 overs. But that’s when Karthik joined Ahmed at the crease and the right-hand-left-hand duo put on a sensational partnership of 67 runs to help their team win with five balls to spare.

While Karthik hit seven fours and a six to remain unbeaten on 44 off 23, Ahmed hit four fours and three sixes to score 45 off 26.

IPL 2022 points table: RCB hand RR first defeat of the season to move up

Rajasthan, asked to bat first, recovered from a slow start and to finish with 169/3 from their 20 overs thanks mainly to the in-form Jos Buttler’s unbeaten 70 off 47. They scored 42 runs off the last two overs of their innings as Shimron Hetmyer remained not-out on 42 off 31.

In reply, RCB got a solid opening partnership thanks to skipper Faf du Plessis and Anuj Rawat. But they had a stunning collapse from there, losing four wickets for just seven runs. Virat Kohli, in at No 3, was run-out for five runs off six balls after some incredible work by RR captain Sanju Samson and Yuzvendra Chahal.

The former RCB leg-spinner cleaned up David Willey for a duck with a beautiful delivery in the same over and went on to return with impressive figures of 2/15 from his four overs.

Bangalore were in serious trouble when Sherfane Rutherford was dismissed thanks to a phenomenal catch by Navdeep Saini. They had lost half the side at that time and needed 83 off 45.

But Karthik and Ahmed took over from there to put up a memorable chase. Karthik went after his Tamil Nadu teammate Ashwin Ravichandran as the senior off-spinner leaked 21 runs in his final over.

Saini and Prasidh Krishna were then taken to the cleaners before Chahal’s final over was played out smartly. Needing 28 runs to win off the last three overs, the RCB batters hit Trent Boult for 13 runs before cruising to a victory eventually.

Earlier, Rajasthan lost opener Yashasvi Jaiswal cheaply again and struggled to up the run-rate in the powerplay. Buttler and Devdutt Padikkal (37 off 29) then tried to break the shackles but couldn’t really build momentum.

Samson (8 off 8) getting out caught-and-bowled to Wanindu Hasaranga in the 12th over was a big blow for Rajasthan. Hetmyer got some boundaries after coming to the crease at No 5 but Buttler wasn’t getting enough strike and took 40 deliveries to get to 43 runs.

It was only in the last two overs that the England batter, who scored a century in the previous game, found his range. He went after Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep to score 27 runs off the last seven balls he faced. The blitz helped RR to avoid finishing with a well below-par total.

Harshal Patel, with figures of 1/18 from his four overs, was the pick of the bowlers for the Royal Challengers.