The Eden Gardens witnessed a glorious show from the home team as the Kolkata Knight Riders defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 81 runs. Batting first, KKR scored 204 runs in the first innings, led by Shardul Thakur’s rapid-fire 68 runs in 29 deliveries (9×4, 3×6) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s 57 runs (6×4, 3×6).
RCB started well but as the star opening pair of Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis looked like getting into the groove, the spinners were introduced, and it was all KKR show from thereon. The spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Suyash Sharma picked up nine wickets among them as the Challengers were bowled out for 123.
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Suyash Sharma made his TATA IPL debut tonight and had a starring role in the win. His bowling decimated the RCB batting order and showed extreme promise as he picked up three wickets.
JioCinema IPL expert Parthiv Patel was extremely impressed with how the 19-year-old performed under the pressure of playing in his TATA IPL debut at the iconic Eden Gardens.
“He left an impact based on how he was bowling. We’ve seen him at the U-25 for Delhi, the way he bowls. As Nitish (Rana) said, he is a different kind of leg-spinner. He goes more towards a googly but he has pace as well."
“We can see his confidence especially when he’s asking for a DRS call with the captain. You can see he has a lot of self-belief. He’s played U-25 but hasn’t played first class cricket, neither played Mushtaq Ali nor Vijay Hazare, and the fact that he could perform like this in front of 70,000 people is extremely praiseworthy. It’s very hard to perform under pressure," said Parthiv.
The spin bowlers for KKR caused the match to swing in their favour after a strong start from Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis, with both players being bowled in back-to-back overs. Kohli fell to Sunil Narine and du Plessis was dismissed by Varun Chakaravarthy.
JioCinema IPL expert Suresh Raina praised the confidence with which Chakaravarthy was played.
“Today, we got to see good accuracy from his (Varun) bowling and there was pace as well. Over the last year, we didn’t see pace as much because the ball wouldn’t go off the wicket."
“He had a shoulder injury that he came back from, and a knee injury as well. His fitness is looking great based on how he caught the ball. When you return from injury and perform well at the start of a tournament, it changes your confidence."
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Parthiv Patel came into this game fancying his former team in Bangalore to pick up the win due to their strength on paper but gave KKR their flowers for a deserved win tonight.
“I was supporting RCB and wanted them to win tonight. If you look at the man-to-man team, RCB is a stronger team. But I have to praise the Kolkata Knight Riders on how they played."
“At the start, RCB was all over them and KKR made a comeback. We kept talking about the tricky nature of the pitch here and the way the KKR spinners bowled, but the shot selection of RCB batters will make them wonder if they picked the right shots. It definitely hurt to watch RCB lose," the former Indian wicketkeeper-batsman said.
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