The vibrant crowds of Kolkata, cladded in their purple jerseys relished the evening as Kolkata Knight Riders put ap an exceptional performance to outwit the guests, who seemed to be utter clueless in the whole gospel of match. The star of the match definitely had to be Shardul Thakur who proved his power hitting mettle to the Cricket World , while film stars like Shahrukh Khan, Ahaana Khan and Juhi Chawla celebrated the win alongside the players of KKR.
Table of Contents
1. Willey strikes Early, and Shardul and Rinku’s powerful striking puts RCB’s work in vain
Previously, KKR scored 204 for 7 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first by RCB. For KKR, just three hitters stood out, but that was enough to push the team’s total above 200. Prior to Shardul Thakur completing his first fifty in this T20 competition, Rahmanullah Gurbaz struck a fifty at the top of the order. With a quickfire 46, Rinku Singh put the finishing touches on the team’s score of 204 for 7.
Andre Russell’s first-ball duck for KKR contributed to their reduction to 89 for 5 after a rocky start at the plate. Even though opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz scored a critical 57 off 44 balls at the top of the order, this still occurred. Just as KKR were about to accept a modest score, Shardul sprang to his feet and abruptly turned the bowling side’s tables. He wasted no time in attacking Akash Deep, scoring 19 runs on two fours and a six.
He danced down the track to knock two successive sixes against Michael Bracewell after slog-sweeping Karn Sharma for a four. Shardul reached his 50th run in 20 balls by hitting his sixth four of the innings against Harshal Patel in the 17th over.
Shardul had hammered nine fours and three six by the time he eventually fell, for 68 off 29, and had contributed to KKR passing the 200-run barrier. At the other end, Rinku Singh provided the ideal opposition and even participated in the carnage during the final two overs, scoring 46 off 33. For the sixth wicket, Shardul and Rinku added 103 runs in just 45 balls. RCB once again struggled with the ball in the final five overs, giving up 64 runs.
2. Kohli and Faf give a fiery start, and Spinsters of KKR demolish RCB’s middle order
King Kohli and skipper Faf gave RCB a strong start by scoring 42 runs off the first four overs with 205 to get. Then Nitish Rana tossed the ball to Sunil Narine, who immediately profited. When Kohli attempted to take on Sunil Narine and failed to flick the ball away from the off-stump, the RCB procession got underway. The ball slammed into the stumps after passing through the wide bat-pad gap.
Then Varun Chakravarthy threw three googlies during two overs, which three batters failed to read. Glenn Maxwell’s stumps were knocked over after the RCB skipper first played one towards the stumps and Glenn Maxwell swung at it in anticipation of the leg-break. Harshal Patel, who had been promoted up the chain of command, was also unaware of the spectacle.
For the 19-year-old, picking up three wickets was like a dream come true. Anuj Rawat, an important player for RCB, was first in line and dropped to one knee to slog sweep a delivery that had been tossed up. But the ball veered off course, and Narine at short third man received the top edge. With the removal of Dinesh Karthik, who chased down a ball outside the off-stump and hit it to Varun at short third man, he effectively put a stop to RCB’s pursuit in the same over.
Attempting to slog him as well, Karn Sharma became Suyash’s third victim of the evening. The RCB were nine behind for 96 after this.
With such a disheartening performance at the very induction of IPL, RCB had to work on its strategy and team development in the upcoming matches. From being the team with the highest run rate in the first match to the team with the second least Strike rate, Royal Challengers Bangalore have a long ladder to climb before making it to the top teams in TATA IPL 2024.
With 3 out of the next 4 matches at Chinnaswamy Stadium, RCB will hope to have a clean sweep in the upcoming matches. On Monday, April 10, RCB travels back to their home ground to play LSG, while KKR travels to Ahmedabad to play the Gujarat Titans, the defending champions, on Sunday (April 9).
