Thakur, spinners lead KKR to thumping win against RCB

The Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday night at the Eden Gardens as the hosts beat Faf du Plessis’ side by 81 runs to pick up their first win of IPL 2023. Shardul Thakur was Kolkata’s unlikely hero with the bat and scored 68 off 29 deliveries to propel the Knight Riders to 204 for seven before their spinners dominated in the chase. Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, and impact substitute Suyash Sharma picked up nine wickets between them to skittle RCB for 123, handing KKR their first two points of the campaign.

Having lost the toss and sent into bat, KKR got off to a terrible start in the powerplay. The home side managed to survive the first three overs unscathed, but David Willey found some swing to burst through the top order, cleaning up Venkatesh Iyer and Mandeep Singh off consecutive deliveries. The skipper Nitish Rana also fell off the first ball after the powerplay, gloving a mistimed reverse sweep to Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps. After a suspect start, Rahmanullah Gurbaz found some timely boundaries to reach his half-century, but Karn Sharma also struck twice in two balls to remove the opener and Andre Russell.

The leg-spinner’s twin strikes left KKR reeling at 89 for five, but Shardul Thakur played the innings of his IPL career to save the hosts’ fortunes. Shardul flipped the script with his brute force and timing, carting Akash Deep for 19 runs in an over and smashing Michael Bracewell for two consecutive sixes to race away to a 20-ball half-century – the joint-quickest this season. Thakur added 103 runs for the sixth wicket with Rinku Singh, who managed 46 off 33, to take KKR to a winning total of 204.

In reply, Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis smashed the KKR pacers to start the chase. Umesh Yadav was taken for two fours in the opening over, while Tim Southee conceded 23 runs in his second, taking RCB to 42 in four. However, the introduction of spin changed the course of the game as Sunil Narine cleaned up Virat Kohli in the fifth over before Varun Chakravarthy removed his partner du Plessis from the other end.

Spin continued to dominate as Chakravarthy dismissed Glenn Maxwell and the promoted Harshal Patel in the same over, while Narine removed Shahbaz Ahmed, leaving RCB reeling at 61 for five. 19-year-old impact substitute Suyash Sharma added to the carnage with three wickets on debut, dismissing Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat, and Karn Sharma before Varun Chakravarthy picked up the final wicket to bowl RCB out for 123 inside 18 overs.