IPL 2023: All-round KKR return to winning ways with 21-run away win over RCB

Kolkata Knight Riders returned to winning ways after losing four games on the trot as they defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Wednesday.

It was their second meeting in the tournament and KKR completed the double, having won at home too.

The powerplay has been RCB’s strong suit with the bat and the ball. Today, however, it didn’t come off in either of the first six overs. There were no strong opening partnerships between Faf Du Plessis or Virat Kohli or Glenn Maxwell with the former dismissed by Suyash Sharma in the third over.

Although Kohli went on to score his fifth fifty of the season, he was dismissed in the middle phase that saw RCB lose three wickets in quick succession.

In that phase during the 12th to 15th over, Mahipal Lomror was dismissed by Varun Chakravarthy, followed by Kohli handing his wicket to Andre Russell soon after his fifty and Suyash Prabhudessai was run out.

There was no recovery after that even as Dinesh Karthik tried. Varun picked up his third, as Karthik tried to clear one over the ropes. Essentially, it was the spin duo of Suyash and Varun that choked the RCB chase.

Earlier in the powerplay with the ball too, Mohammed Siraj and David Willey, usually very effective during that period, were not able to get any wickets. Jason Roy picked up from where he left against Chennai Super Kings where he scored the second-fasted fifty of the season. Today, he smashed 56 off 29 deliveries.

N Jagadeesan was off to a slow start and wasn’t able to turn it around. Vijaykumar Vyshak sent back both the openers in the same over. Venkastesh Iyer was also struggling for timing but captain Nitish Rana on the other end went hard at the RCB bowlers to score a handy 48 off 21. Later, captain Virat Kohli came down heavily on the phase where RCB let Rana get away with sloppy catching.

Wanindu Hasaranga bowled a fine over to dismiss both Rana and Iyer while Siraj clean bowled Andre Russell for 1. However, KKR went on to score the predicted 200 runs as Rinku Singh got some clean hits in the end and had David Wiese for company.

Eventually, that proved to be too much for RCB.

Varun was named player of the match.

KKR moved to 7th on the table. RCB now face a streak of five away games before returning home for their final league game.