Virat Kohli,
who was keen to return to his scoring ways in this year’s IPL edition, was dealt
a golden duck by Lucknow Super Giants bowler Dushmantha Chameera when Faf du
Plessis’ Royal Challengers Bangalore faced off against them at the DY Patil Stadium.

The former
RCB captain displayed a rare batting failure, as the talismanic hitter was
dismissed in the first over of Bangalore’s innings. After dismissing RCB opener
Anuj Rawat on the last ball of the first over, Sri Lanka’s Chameera bowled
Kohli for a golden duck, shocking the RCB camp. While Kohli recorded his first
golden duck in five years, LSG pacer Chameera entered a select group that
includes former Indian pacers Ashish Nehra and Sandeep Sharma.

Chameera is
only the fourth bowler in IPL history to dismiss Kohli for a golden duck. Kohli
has collected a first-ball nought four times since making his IPL debut for RCB
in 2008. Nehra, a former RCB teammate and ex-India pacer, was the first to
dismiss Kohli for a golden duck. During Bangalore’s match against Punjab Kings
in the 2014 IPL, Indian bowler Sandeep Sharma dismissed Kohli on the first
ball. Nathan Coulter-Nile, a former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowler,
accomplished the identical feat against Kohli in 2017.

This year,
his only notable runs have been 41 not out against Punjab Kings in RCB’s first
match of the season and 48 against Mumbai Indians. RCB were reduced to 47/3 at
the end of the Powerplay after LSG skipper KL Rahul won the toss and chose to
field. Chameera dismissed Rawat and Kohli in quick succession before Krunal
Pandya ended Glenn Maxwell’s exciting cameo of 23 off 11 balls, which included
three fours and a six.

However, Faf
du Plessis’ 96-run innings ensured that RCB concluded with a respectable score
of 181/6. A key 70-run partnership between the RCB captain and Shahbaz Ahmed
restored order to the innings, and even though the partnership was broken, du
Plessis’ joint career-best score helped them pass the 180-run threshold.

In the 15th
season of the world’s biggest T20 tournament, the 33-year-old has only scored
119 runs from seven matches. Kohli has been struck out three times in four
Powerplay innings this season. The IPL’s all-time leading run-scorer has an
average of 8.33 in the Powerplay.