Kolkata Knight Riders beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in match number 36 of IPL 2023 on Wednesday.
After winning the toss, stand in captain Virat Kohli had opted to bowl first but the team ended up conceded 200/5 in the first innings. Even though that seemed to be a chasable target on a flat Chinnaswamy surface, in the end the total proved to be too much for the Bangalore side once the Kolkata bowlers got past the famed trio of Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell.
For Kolkata, Jason Roy scored a half-century (56 off 29) and Nitish Rana chipped in with a 48 off 21 but it was the cameos from Rinku Singh (18* off 10) and David Wiese (12* off 3) that allowed Kolkata post precisely a 200 with Narayan Jagadeesan (27 off 29) and Venkatesh Iyer (31 off 26) struggling to find the right tempo.
In the run chase, Bangalore had got off to a superb start by getting 30 in the first 2 overs but it was the Kolkata spinners who helped the Men in Purple make a good match out of it by taking three wickets inside the powerplay. Suyash Sharma (2/30) first got rid of Faf du Plessis whch was followed by the wicket of Shahbaz Ahmed in the 5th over followed by Varun Chakaravarthy getting the better of Glenn Maxwell. Chakaravarthy was the pick of the bowlers for Kolkata, finishing with figures of 3 for 27.
The partnership between Mahipal Lomror (34 off 18) and Virat Kohli (54 off 37) looked to take Bangalore in a position of control but both the batters got out in quick succession after which the home team were always behind in the game.
Andre Russell may have failed to create an impact with the bat getting out to a yorker from Mohammed Siraj in the last ball of the 19th over but he completed his quota of 4 overs and returned with impressive figures of 2 for 29, most importantly getting the wicket of Kohli who was looking in good nick for RCB.
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