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Venkatesh Iyer’s half-century and Sunil Narayan’s stormy innings helped Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) register their second consecutive win by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by seven wickets in the Indian Premier League here on Friday.
Chasing RCB’s target of 183 runs, the Knight Riders registered an easy win by scoring 186 runs for three wickets with 19 balls to spare with the help of stormy innings of Venkatesh (50 runs, 30 balls, four sixes, three fours) and Narayan (47 runs, 22 balls, five sixes, two fours).
Narayan and Phil Salt (30 runs, 20 balls, two sixes, two fours) gave the team a quick start by adding 86 runs in 6.3 overs for the first wicket, while Venkatesh made the way to victory easy by adding 75 runs for the third wicket with captain Shreyas Iyer (39 not out, 24 balls, two fours, two sixes). KKR thus became the first team to defeat the host team in the current season.
RCB earlier scored 182 runs for six wickets thanks to Kohli’s unbeaten innings of 83 runs in 59 balls with four sixes and four fours. Kohli also shared a 65-run partnership for the second wicket with Cameron Green (33) and 42-run partnership for the third wicket with Glenn Maxwell (28). Dinesh Karthik finally scored 20 runs in eight balls with the help of three sixes.
Narayan and Salt gave a stormy start to KKR, who came out to chase the target. Salt started with two sixes and a four in Siraj’s first over while Narine hit two sixes off Alzari Joseph in the third over. Narine targeted Yash Dayal in the sixth over and scored 21 runs in his over with two sixes and a four.
KKR scored 85 runs without losing a wicket in the power play, which is the highest score of any team in the first six overs in the current season. Mayank Dagar gave RCB their first success by bowling Narine in the seventh over. Vijay Kumar Visakh got Salt caught by Green at deep square leg in the next over, taking the Knight Riders’ score to 92 for two.
Venkatesh completed the team’s century with a six off Dagar in the ninth over and then hit two sixes and two fours in Joseph’s over. Venkatesh completed his half-century in 29 balls with a six and a run off Siraj. KKR needed only 16 runs to win in the last five overs.
Venkatesh was caught by Kohli off Dayal’s ball but Iyer and Rinku Singh (05 not out) easily took the team to the target. Kohli, meanwhile, equaled Suresh Raina’s record of most 109 catches in IPL with the catch of Venkatesh.
Iyer won the toss and decided to bowl first. Kohli opened his account with a four off the first ball of the innings from Mitchell Starc (47 runs without a wicket) while captain Faf du Plessis (08) hit a six off Harshit Rana but played the next ball of this fast bowler into the hands of Starc at short third man.
Kohli hit a six and a four off consecutive balls of Starc in the next over while Green also opened his account with a four. Green welcomed Sunil Narayan, who was playing his 500th T20, with two consecutive fours and a six in the sixth over, which helped RCB score 61 runs for one wicket in the power play. Kohli also hit a six off this off-spinner.
Green hit his second six off Andre Russell but was bowled off the next ball. He faced 21 balls and hit four fours and two sixes. Kohli completed his second consecutive half-century off 36 balls with a six and a run off leg-spinner Varun Chakraborty. Maxwell completed the team’s century in the 12th over with two consecutive fours off Chakraborty. However, he was lucky in Narayan’s next over when Ramandeep Singh dropped his catch at deep midwicket.
Maxwell also hit a six off Harshit and on the next ball, while trying to repeat this shot, he was caught in the air but this time Narayan failed to catch his catch at short third man. Maxwell, however, could not take advantage of the lifeline and was caught by Rinku Singh off Narayan’s ball.
Russell then dismissed Rajat Patidar (03) while Harshit dismissed Anuj Rawat (03) to take RCB’s score to 151 for five. As soon as he came, Karthik hit two sixes off Russell. He also hit a six off Starc before getting run out on the last ball of the innings. For KKR, Russell took two wickets for 29 runs while Harshit took two wickets for 39 runs.
