Two Lucknow Super Giants left-handers made up for the failures of two local heroes, but despite Quinton de Kock’s excellent 81 (56b) and Nicholas Pooran’s blazing unbeaten 40 (21b), Royal Challengers Bengaluru were the happier outfit at the midway stage of Tuesday night’s IPL showdown at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

KL Rahul, back as skipper after being subbed out in the last game, and Devdutt Padikkal only managed 26 runs in 24 deliveries between them—they must have felt strange that their ‘home’ fans cheered their dismissals—but through de Kock and Pooran, LSG’s start-stop-start innings reached 181 for five when they ran out of overs. Scores of 176 and 182 have been chased down reasonably comfortably at this venue over the last week and RCB will fancy their chances, given their powerful batting line-up, though the X-Factor of Mayank Yadav might yet have a say.