Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) succumbed to a 81-run loss against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in match 9 of IPL 2023 at Eden Garden in Kolkata on Thursday.
It was a forgettable outing for RCB where they won nothing except for the toss. When the flip of the coin when RCB captain Faf du Plessis' way, he followed the trend and asked KKR to bat first.
Initially, it looked like du Plessis had made the right call as KKR were reduced to 47/3 in 6.1 overs. Left arm pacer David Willey, who replaced his injured countryman Reece Topley in RCB's playing XI for the match, did the early damage as he picked the wickets of Venkatesh Iyer and Mandeep Singh in one over. Then for the second match running, KKR captain Nitish Rana lost his wicket to a spinner as he was dismissed by Michael Bracewell.
Early wickets did not dampen the spirits of Rahmanullah Gurbaz and KKR's wicketkeeper opening batsman from Afghanistan reached his maiden IPL fifty with a six against Karn Sharma in the 10th over of the innings. Two overs later Gurbaz became Sharma's victim and walked back after scoring 57 from 44 balls hitting six fours and three sixes. A ball later KKR's swashbuckling all-rounder Andre Russell departed on a first-ball duck.
Despite Gurbaz's salvo, KKR's score on the fall of Russell's wicket read 89/5 and RCB looked in complete command of the proceedings.
Russell's wicket brought together KKR's new recruit Shardul Thakur and star from the last season Rinku Singh. And it is from this stage the tide started to turn in KKR's favour.
In a display of stunning counterattacking batsmanship, Thakur punished RCB bowlers to complete his first T20 half-century in only 20 balls. With Thakur blasting the bowlers Singh adopted a more measured approach to his innings.
Thakur and Singh capitalized on poor bowling by even poorer tactical moves by du Plessis and completed 100-run partnership. Singh was eventually dismissed by Harshal Patel in the penultimate over of the KKR's innings and the southpaw walked back after scoring 46 valuable runs in 33 deliveries.
Thakur was the last KKR wicket to fall as he attempted to play a big shot against Mohammed Siraj but got caught by Glenn Maxwell. But Thakur had done his job as he walked back to loud cheers from the KKR fans after scoring 68 in 29 balls hitting nine fours and three sixes.
Thanks to efforts by Thakur and Singh KKR recovered from a sorry looking 89/5 to end up with a strong total of 204/7 in 20 overs.
du Plessis and Virat Kohli kick-started RCB's run chase in fine fashion as the two put a 44-run partnership in less than 5 overs. There were sings that the two could repeat their performances put from three nights ago against KKR too.
Just when RCB fans started to believe tragedy struck as Kohli's frailty against spin was exposed and he was clean bowled by Sunil Narine. An over later du Plessis was clean bowled by Varun Chakaravarthy.
After RCB lost its openers, the rest of the batting collapsed with the spin trio of Narine, Chakaravarthy and debutant Suyash Sharma combining to pick nine of the 10 RCB wickets.
RCB were bundled out on just 123 when Chakaravarthy took a catch off his own bowling to dismiss Akash Deep.
Thus ended a match in which fortunes of the two teams swung like a wild pendulum.
Thakur was awarded the Player of the Match for his 68 runs with the bat and one wicket.
The win took KKR to the third place on the IPL 2023 points table behind Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals while RCB slipped to seventh place just ahead of Delhi Capitals.
What is next in store for KKR and RCB?
After rocking their home in east, KKR will now travel to west to be in Ahmedabad where they will take on defending champions Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium on April 9.
RCB will be heading home where they will be welcoming Lucknow Super Giants on April 10th.
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