RCB were bowled out for just 92, with Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer making their presence felt with the bat to ensure a tidy win.
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The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) recorded an emphatic victory over the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Monday. The Abu Dhabi pitch served up a surprise as what looked like a good batting pitch turned the tables on Virat Kohli’s men. Kohli had won the toss and chosen to bat believing they could get a good 150-plus score, but all they could manage was 92. There was an incredible amount of dew on the field in the first innings and that completely took RCB by surprise. KKR bowler Varun Chakravarthy served up a brilliant spell as the men in purple systematically took RCB apart. It only took the Knight Riders 10 overs and with nine wickets in hand, they reached the target easily moving up to fifth on the table.
KKR batters Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill, somehow, made the pitch look like a good batting surface. There was not one slow over in the KKR innings. It was absolute destruction. Gill played a fantastic knock, scoring 48 runs off 34 deliveries before being dismissed by Yuzevendra Chahal. Iyer, who was making his debut, cemented his place in the KKR side with an outstanding knock of 41 runs from just 27 deliveries. He played shots all around the park, including an outstanding cover drive. He is certainly going to be one of the players to watch out for in the remainder of the competition.
No one, apart from Devdutt Padikkal made over 20 runs in the RCB lineup. Kohli, who had earlier announced that the ongoing edition would be his final season as the RCB skipper, only managed to make five runs. Padikkal made 22. Srikar Bharat and Glenn Maxwell were the next men out but they only managed to make 16 and 10 runs respectively. The rest of the batting lineup did not contribute any meaningful scores to the total. Even AB de Villiers was knocked over for a duck by Andre Russell.
The bowling efforts of the Knight Riders were a thing of beauty. The performance was a flawless one. Varun Chakravarthy was undoubtedly the star of the show. He took two wickets back-to-back of Glenn Maxwell and Wanindu Hasaranga. The spinner also sent Sachin Baby back to the pavilion and ran out Kyle Jamieson. It could be called the perfect performance.
All-rounder Andre Russell also seemed to be in great form as he bagged three wickets for just nine runs in three overs. Lockie Ferguson picked a couple of wickets in his four overs and conceded just 24 runs. Prasidh Krishna picked one wicket and it was the crucial one of Virat Kohli.
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