Kolkata Knight Riders Inning
After Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli made the decision to bowl at their home ground, the English opener for the Kolkata Knight Riders took the lead with a score of 56 off of just 29 balls to help his team post a formidable score of 200/5.
KKR subsequently got back into the action, with Roy establishing the pace up front by smashing five maximums and 4 boundaries. Together, Roy along with Narayan Jagadeesan with 27 runs on 29 balls provided KKR their greatest-ever start, scoring 83 runs off only 56 deliveries.
KKR’s performance came on each side of two fantastic bowling stints delivered by Sri Lankan leg spin wonder Hasaranga, who finished with taking 2 wickets and giving 24 runs in his 4 overs spell, which was enough to cause enough stir.
First, his malicious spell following the powerplay provided the momentum for the double strike of Vyshak when he expelled Jagadeesan as well as Roy. This resulted in Vyshak’s elimination of both players.
However, Rana immediately assured that they do not lose momentum as he raced towards his 48 runs off just 21 deliveries with 3 boundaries and four maximums by taking good advantage of the two amnesties that he was given on 5 and 19.
The newly discovered hero for KKR, Rinku Singh with 18 runs not out off 10 balls, then took over and ensured that they reached the 200-mark by smashing two boundaries and a six throughout his innings.
David Wiese hit a pair of sixes to bring his team’s score to an unblemished 12.
Roy blazed his way to a fifty off only 22 balls, his 2nd fifty in consecutive games, giving KKR the best beginning to the season. This performance gave KKR its best-ever start in any season.
The Englishman demonstrated his purpose when facing RCB’s new balls bowling such as David Willey and Mohammed Siraj, and he released his rage when left-arm spin bowler Ahmed was brought into the game in the final over during the powerplay.
KKR raced to their best powerplay score of this campaign with 66 scores for no damage thanks to Roy’s smoking of him for 4 maximums in 55 deliveries during a 25-run over.
However, kudos are due to Hasaranga for throwing a neat over following the powerplay in which he allowed just 2 scores to score and put pressure on the tandem.
As boundaries abruptly evaporated up, Harshal Patel and Vyshak, too, pulled their grip, and this became all the more apparent on the pair.
While Jagadeesan was having trouble getting big hits, Vyshak bowled him out with a bouncer, and then the inexperienced Indian bowler got a superb leg stump yorker that picked up the Englishman across his legs. This delivery by the inexperienced Indian was a beauty of a ball.
KKR has now won twice this season versus RCB, following their triumph at Eden Gardens on the 6th of April.
Royal Challengers Bangalore Inning
The spin bowling combo of KKR, Varun Chakravarthy who gave 24 runs and took 3 wickets, and Suyash Sharma who gave 30 runs and took 2 wickets, were able to keep RCB’s upper order to 179 runs for 8 wickets till Andre Russell who gave 29 runs and took 2 wickets joined the fray.
After both du Plessis with 17 runs and Glenn Maxwell with 5 runs were dismissed for low scores, Virat Kohli took charge of the team in the position of Faf du Plessis and hit 54 runs off 34 deliveries to keep their hopes alive in the chase of 201 runs.
But everything went downhill after Venkatesh Iyer grabbed a crucial catch at the farthest midwicket boundary to pick up Kohli off of Russell. After that, everything broke loose.
He dove towards the left and turned over, but he managed to keep hold of the ball despite the fact that Kohli was walking back in shock.
Dinesh Karthik who made 22 runs was the only one who could keep RCB’s run chase alive with 86 runs still needing to be scored off of 48 balls. However, Chakravarthy got the final laugh when he got the experienced RCB keeper-batsman as he was on his way to a 3-for, and it looked like the game was finished for RCB.
KKR completed the season sweep of RCB by winning both of their matches, the first of which was a victory by 81 runs.
The defeat once again demonstrated that the RCB places an excessive amount of trust in their “Big Three” players, which are Maxwell, Du Plessis, and Kohli.
The spin combo of Chakravarthy and Sharma provided KKR with a fantastic start, splitting 3 wickets together within the powerplay (58/3), which halted RCB’s blazing start on 30 for loss.
Fa du Plessis, the usual skipper of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), blasted Umesh Yadav down both ends of the field when he was sitting out in order to be substituted as an Impact Player. This was Du Plessis’ most menacing performance of the match.
While the RCB opening combo gorged on the KKR fast bowlers to begin, Kohli too appeared to be in full flow and dominating the situation.
Suyash Sharma, the team’s newest addition to the spin department, was brought in after their top spinner, Sunil Narine, failed to pick up a wicket in any of the four matches they played.
It was a tactic that worked, as the leggie took the prized victim of du Plessis off a bad one, and during his next over, he caught Shahbaz Ahmed with 2 runs.
After that, Maxwell was dismissed by Chakravarthy for the 2nd time in multiple games this season, which caused the peak order for the RCB to be in a state of turmoil.
But the RCB didn’t let up at any point, and Mahipal Lomror demonstrated his determination by providing Kohli with the ideal support as the two of them proceeded about their business.
Result
In the second match of the Indian Premier League 2023, which took place on Wednesday in Bengaluru at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by a comfortable margin of 21 runs to end their losing streak of four matches. The match was played in reverse order.
20
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20
20
Aon Ali has graduated from the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Multan in 2012 and then he started his career in a local News agency as an IT manager. Later on, he started creating news reports for the sports category. Since he is fond of cricket, so most of his work is in the coverage of news related to local cricket events.
