Highlights:
- Kolkata Knight Riders have climbed to the 5th place with a 9-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore.
- This was also a sixth successive defeat for RCB in UAE.
- With this match Kohli became the first player in IPL to play 200 IPL matches for a franchise.
The Kolkata Knight Riders dominated the Royal Challengers Bangalore from the start until the end of their Indian Premier League encounter on Monday, winning convincingly by nine wickets.
After a poor performance in the first phase of the league earlier this year, the Knight Riders bowlers struck in sync to defeat Royal Challengers Bangalore for a meagre 92.
The opening partnership of Shubman Gill and debutant Venkatesh Iyer then produced some beautiful strokes and breezed through the chase of 93, completing the formalities with as much as 10 overs to spare.
The incredibly talented Gill was knocked out at 48 off 34 deliveries, while Iyer, who might have been a successful management professional after earning his MBA in finance and foregoing a placement as a tax consultant, was on a 27-ball 41 not out when the winning run was scored.
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The outcome will not only significantly enhance their morale, but will also increase KKR’s net run rate in the future.
Varun Chakravarthy (3/13) took three wickets in an impressive four-over stint to open the bowling. Andre Russell (3/9 in three overs) took three wickets, while Lockie Ferguson took two.
In skipper Virat Kohli’s 200th game for RCB, Devdutt Padikkal led the way with 22 runs.
Prasidh Krishna, bowling the second over of the day, gave RCB a major blow when he trapped Virat Kohli in front of the wicket with his fourth ball, which jagged in and hit him above the knee-roll.
Kohli asked for a review after completing a double century for RCB, but ball-tracking technology showed that it was likely to strike the stumps. This occurred shortly after Kohli hit a Krishna delivery in front of square on the off-side for a stunning four.
Lockie Ferguson of New Zealand replaced Chakravarthy, and the talented Devdutt Padikkal blasted the pacer straight over his head to get things going for RCB.
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In the following over, Krishna delivered back-to-back no balls (one front foot and one beamer), and when debutant Srikar Bharat failed to break the shackles, Padikkal took advantage of the extra delivery with a boundary.
Sunil Narine was called in by KKR skipper Eoin Morgan, and while the Trinidadian spinner failed to find a breakthrough in his first over, Ferguson did so in his second over, when he caught Padikkal behind as the batsman attempted to play the ball fine beyond the keeper despite having little area to complete the ramp shot.
Bharat’s stint in the middle was cut short by Russell as the pressure increased on the batsman.
The biggest blow to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) came when Russell bowled AB de Villiers for a first-ball duck with a superb yorker that smacked the leg stump.
At 52 for four in the ninth over, RCB were in big danger, and it got much worse with the departures of Glenn Maxwell, who invited his own downfall with a reckless heave against Chakravarthy’s tossed-up delivery, and Wanindu Hasaranga, the team’s second debutant, who was out cheaply.
Both batsmen were bowled off successive deliveries on a slower surface, which Kohli mentioned after winning the toss and choosing to bat.
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