Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by a massive 81 runs at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata to bounce back in IPL 2023. Shardul Thakur (68 off 29 balls) played the innings of his life and then KKR spinners Varun Chakrawarthy (4/15), Sunil Narine (2/16) and Suyash Sharma (3/30) took over and helped KKR bundle RCB out for a paltry 123.
It all began when RCB won the toss and opted to bowl, and the decision proved right initially. KKR lost the wickets of Venkatesh Iyer and Mandeep Singh off successive deliveries and were reduced to 26/2.
Match Proceedings of KKR vs RCB
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (57 off 44 balls) continued to attack but once he departed, the hosts lost flurry of wickets and were reduced to 89/5.
From this point on Thakur took over and launched an epic counter-attack which took RCB by complete surprise. Thakur went after the spinners and especially targeted Michael Bracewell for back-to-back sixes. He then took on Harshal Patel and Mohammed Siraj who could be accused of pedestrian bowling.
Thakur got good support from Rinku Singh (46 off 33 balls) and both shared a counter-attacking stand worth 103 runs. KKR eventually ended up scoring a massive 204/7.
In reply, RCB openers Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis got them to a nice start. While Kohli hit a couple of boundaries, Du Plessis hit Tim Southee for 6,4 and 6 in the same over.
But once the spinner came on, RCB’s scoring rate fell. First it was Kohli who was bamboozled by Sunil Narine’s delivery. The ball spun and hit the top of his off stump. Then Du Plessis inside edged Chakravarthy which triggered a collapse.
RCB lost four wickets in space of just ten runs. Later when Shahbaz Ahmed reverse swept Narine and got caught, RCB were reduced to 61/5.
Match Result
Chakrawarthy went on to pick four wickets while Impact Player Suyash Sharma complimented him with three wickets. RCB showed no fight at all with Du Plessis being the top scorer with 23 as they were eventually bundled out for 123.
No surprises, Thakur was picked Player of the Match.