With an 81-run victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL on Thursday in Kolkata, Kolkata Knight Riders celebrated a memorable homecoming. Shardul Thakur hit a counter-attacking half-century before the spinners performed their parts to perfection.
Once RCB decided to bowl, KKR found themselves in trouble at 89/5 until Thakur staged a remarkable comeback with his 29-ball 68 to propel his side to 204/7.
At No. 7, Thakur scored the second-fastest fifty of the year off 20 balls and enjoyed a fun 103-run wicket partnership with Rinku Singh off 47 balls (46 off 33).
In response, RCB couldn’t hold out and were dismissed for 123 in 17.4 overs, losing nine wickets between Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, and debutant Suyash Sharma.
The victory was KKR’s first of the year.
With his all-around performance in KKR’s first home game in almost four years, Thakur also claimed one wicket.
Before Sunil Narine, playing in his 150th IPL game, spooked Virat Kohli (21; 18b) with a stunning delivery to cause the collapse, RCB were making tremendous progress towards the mammoth chase, reaching 44 without loss in 25 balls.
Glenn Maxwell (5) and Harshal Patel (0) were both quickly bowled out by Chakravarthy, who finished with outstanding figures of 3.4-0-15-4.
As Venkatesh Iyer was replaced as an impact player, 19-year-old leg-spinner Suyash Sharma (4-0-30-3) made his debut in style.
The mysterious long-haired spinner reduced KKR to 86/8 after taking two wickets in one over.
Suyash’s first wicket came when he caught Anju Rawat (1) off guard with a toss-up delivery. Three balls later, with a fuller delivery, he caught Dinesh Karthik (9)’s prized scalp.
Coming off his 82-run performance against the Mumbai Indians, Kohli got things going with a boundary against Umesh Yadav’s opening pitch.
As Narine precipitated the collapse by removing Kohli with a stunning catch, the RCB opening pair who were at 42 for no loss seemed to be in for another simple chase.
The ball veered sharply inward to strike the star Indian’s stumps as he utterly missed the line.
David Willey (4-1-16-2) and Karn Sharma (3-0-26-2) earlier gave RCB the early advantage by getting wickets off consecutive deliveries in the powerplay and middle overs, respectively.
Willey, an English left-arm bowler, exposed KKR’s flimsy top order by dismissing Mandeep Singh (0) and Venkatesh Iyer (3) in quick succession.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz led the charge against an errant Akash Deep en route to his 44-ball 57, his first IPL fifty, but RCB wasted the opportunity.
When a reverse-sweeping Nitish Rana (1) was dismissed after a successful review by RCB on the first ball after the powerplay, things only got worse for KKR.
When KKR was 47/3, they seemed to be in danger, but Gurbaz took the initiative and took on ‘local’ Bengal bowler Akash Deep, drawing him for a six before scoring back-to-back boundaries.
A stunning scoop over the long leg boundary propelled Gurbaz to a fifty in 38 balls after he requested a review to overturn an LBW ruling at 30.
But when the legspinner Sharma struck out Russell and Gurbaz with back-to-back deliveries in the 12th over, RCB once again took the initiative.
Then, in his knock filled with nine fours and three sixes, Thakur took Akash Deep to the cleaners.
None of the RCB bowlers, with the exception of Willey (4-1-16-2), performed poorly, and Akash Deep let up 30 runs in his two overs. Siraj seemed off as well and finished his four overs with 1/44. 23 runs were also lost in the extras.
