The spinning trio of Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and newcomer Suyash Sharma wreaked havoc at Eden Gardens on Thursday. Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 81 runs and returned to this field after four years to record their first victory of IPL 2023.
As well as Shardul Thakur scoring the fastest half century of the season, Rahmanullah Gurbaj scored a pounding half century and Rinku Singh scored a crucial 46 to lead KKR to a mammoth score of 204/7. Following this, the three Kolkata mystery players fooled the RCB batsmen and took them all out for 123 runs in 17.4 overs.
Sunil Narine took two wickets for 16 runs in his four overs. At the same time, Varun Chakraborty sent four RCB batsmen to the arena by giving up just 15 runs. At the same time, 19-year-old Suyash Sharma took three wickets for 30 runs in four overs in his first professional cricket match. He made quite an impression by throwing 11 point balls.
Virat Kohli started the 205 chase and pushed in the outside leg stump from Umesh Yadav’s half-volley for four and finished the opening with another limit in the gap between third man and point back.
Virat and Faf du Plessis struck Tim Southee for two fours and as many sixes in the fourth over, scoring 23 runs. But from there the Naren-Chakraborty show began to give RCB sleepless nights.
Kohli played a cross shot against Naren but missed and lost his wicket. In the next over, Faf du Plessis drove into a fuller ball from Chakraborty and was brought down. Chakraborty’s sharp googly dismissed Glenn Maxwell in the next over.
Half of the RCB team had returned to the pavilion in just 8.5 overs. Even after this, the RCB batsmen were unable to play consistently and the entire team was hit by 123 runs. It would not be wrong to say that the Bangalore batsmen looked helpless against the KKR spinners.
