The flip of the coin favoured Virat Kohli, who chose to bowl first at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday.
Back-to-back fifties for Jason Roy!
Vijaykumar Vyshak removed the KKR openers - Narayan Jagadeesan (27, 29b) and Jason Roy (56, 29b).
Andre Russell failed to get a good score yet again. He is going through a shocking dip in form, having scored merely 107 in his seven outings with KKR this season. Mohammed Siraj, who castled him, meanwhile, moved to the top of the Purple Cap leaderboard.
Kolkata Knight Riders finished with 200 on the board. Interestingly, RCB has managed to chase a 200+ score only once in the last 15 years.
Impact Player Faf du Plessis smacked 17 off seven balls, which included two successive maximums off Umesh Yadav. RCB had raced to 30 for no loss in two overs when leggie Suyash Sharma, introduced in the PowerPlay, had du Plessis caught by Rinku Singh at long-on. It was the wrong’un from Suyash that did the trick.
An early onslaught from RCB openers forced Nitish Rana to turn to spin early and the move paid off when Suyash Sharma trapped Shahbaz Ahmed lbw. Suyash bowled in tandem with Varun Chakravarthy, who bagged the prized wicket of Glenn Maxwell. It was the third time in five innings that Chakravarthy has dismissed Maxwell. The two mystery spinners bowled a combined four overs for 28 runs and three wickets in the PowerPlay.
Virat Kohli reached his fifty off 33 balls, with a brace off Suyash Sharma. He had added 55 for the fourth wicket with Mahipal Lomror, when the latter fell for an 18-ball 34 to leave RCB 113/4 in 11.3 overs. Shortly after, Kohli smacked a pull off Andre Russell’s bowling, only for Venkatesh Iyer to take a stunning catch at deep midwicket. Kohli, who went for a 37-ball 54, now has the most runs by a batter at a single T20 venue, having breached the 3000-mark at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Varun Chakravarthy’s 3 for 27 broke the back of RCB’s run chase as KKR snapped its four- match losing streak. KKR won by 21 runs and stayed alive in the IPL playoffs race.
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