Bangalore, April 18: Just how quickly cricket theory can be ground into dust was demonstrated by New Zealand wicketkeeper and Knight Riders opener Brendon McCullum at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday night.

Rahul Dravid’s odd decision to bat second gave the Kolkata team and the inaugural Indian Premier League a dream start and had team owner Shah Rukh Khan dancing in delight as Sourav Ganguly’s side rode McCullum’s bravura 158 not out to a massive 222/3 and, in turn, a thumping 140-run win. The home side succumbed for 82 in 15.1 overs.

Opening with his skipper, McCullum howitzered the Bangalore Royal Challengers’ attack, punching fours and sixes with absolute abandon. Dravid’s plans were quickly reduced to shambles with every bowler taken to the cleaners. McCullum’s hitting was simply awe-inspiring and the sheer scale of his contribution is evident in the fact that no one else crossed 20.

In reply, the Royal Challengers were done in early by some incisive bowling by poster boy Ishant Sharma who uprooted Dravid’s middle stump with his very first delivery of the league. From that point on, there was very little the local side could do to halt the pumped up Knight Riders, for whom Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting celebrated every wicket with boyish glee despite dropping a skier off his captain’s bowling.

Wasim Jaffer stuttered and stumbled to six runs from 15 balls, underlining the impression that the Royal Challengers are an expensive Dad’s Army with the cheap dismissals of Jacques Kallis, Cameron White and Mark Boucher unable to contribute significantly in the face of some fired up bowling by Ishant, Ashok Dinda, Ajit Agarkar and the skipper himself.

In the end it was a formality completed, full points for Kolkata and a record individual score by McCullum (158 not out) that also included a T20 record 13 sixes. All the first eight Bangalore batsmen failed to even reach double figures, probably also a record, though of the dubious sort.

Agarkar took 3/25, Ganguly 2/21 and Dinda 2/9 while Ishant chipped in with 1/7.

Earlier, McCullum ripped into Zaheer Khan (18 from the left-hander’s opening over), Cameron White (24 runs in an over), Ashley Noffke (22 runs in an over) and plundered runs at will. And it was mostly clean hitting, good cricket shots executed with amazing felicity and freedom.

Praveen Kumar had a good initial spell but then went for 16 in the last over of the innings as the Knight Riders put on 68 runs at close to 14 runs per over in the final five overs.

There was no discrimination in McCullum’s approach to the bowlers. If Zaheer got the early lash, it was Noffke next and 22 runs were blasted off those six deliveries. A brief hiatus later during which Ganguly and Ponting departed, McCullum was back in action this time picking on Sunil Joshi. Even the experienced Kallis gave away 48 runs from his four overs.

McCullum got to 50 in 32 balls (fivs 4s, three 6s), 100 in 53 balls (eight 4s, seven 6s) and 150 in 70 balls (10x4, 13x6). Enroute he also crossed White’s best-ever T20 score of 141 not out in a county game two seasons ago.

Thanks to the Kiwi wicketkeeper’s assault, every partnership put on better than 50 in less than half the number of balls faced. McCullum put on 61 for the opening wicket with Ganguly contributing 10.

For the second, he piled on 51.