IPL 2023: Chakaravarthy, Russell, Suyash shine as KKR beat RCB by 21 runs

Bengaluru: Spinners Varun Chakaravarthy and Suyash Sharma collectively took five wickets while Andre Russell picked two wickets as Kolkata Knight Riders ended their four-match losing streak in IPL 2023 by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs in an high-scoring match at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, here on Wednesday.

An aggressive 56 from Jason Roy and a quick 48 from captain Nitish Rana, along with unbeaten cameos from Rinku Singh and David Wiese propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to 200/5.

In defence, Suyash began the pullback for Kolkata by taking 2/29, before Chakaravarthy and Russell picked 3/27 and 2/29 respectively in restricting Bangalore to 179/8, despite captain Virat Kohli’s 54 and Mahipal Lomror impressing in an 18-ball 34.

Chasing 201, Kohli and Faf du Plessis took a boundary each off Vaibhav Arora in the opening over. Kohli firmly punched Umesh Yadav through cover for four more, followed by du Plessis carting him for back-to-back sixes.

Du Plessis’s stay came to an end in the third over, holing out to long-on off a flighted googly from Suyash. Kohli continued to pull off him and Chakaravarthy for boundaries, though Suyash struck by trapping Shahbaz Ahmad lbw. In the last over of power-play, Kolkata struck again when Glenn Maxwell hit a slower delivery from Chakravarthy straight to mid-off.

Lomror broke a sedate period for Bangalore by sweeping fiercely off Nitish Rana for four, followed by muscling a brace of sixes through the leg-side off Sunil Narine. Kohli got a boundary on a thick outside edge off Suyash and took off for a brace on the very next ball to reach his fifty in 33 balls.

Lomror pulled Chakaravarthy for a six over deep mid-wicket, but the spinner bounced back as the left-handed batter holed out to the same region. The Chinnaswamy crowd was further silenced in the 13th over when Kohli pulled off Russell, only for Venkatesh Prasad to dive to his left and take a stunning low catch.

Though Dinesh Karthik and Suyash Prabhudessai hit a boundary each, the latter being slow in taking the second run resulted in his run-out at the non-striker’s end. Kolkata ended Bangalore’s last hope for a victory by having Wanindu Hasaranga and Karthik caught in the deep in successive overs, making the result a foregone conclusion.

Brief Scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 200/5 in 20 overs (Jason Roy 56, Nitish Rana 48; Wanindu Hasaranga 2/24, Vyshak Vijaykumar 2/41) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (Virat Kohli 54, Mahipal Lomror 34; Varun Chakravarthy 3/27, Andre Russell 2/29) by 21 runs.