Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders (Match 36) – Highlights

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) could not win any matches after Rinku Singh’s superhuman sixes. They have lost four matches in a row. Nitish Rana’s team lost their last match against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by a big margin of 49 runs.

Finally, after overcoming that losing streak, the Knight Riders returned to the winning track. On Wednesday (April 26) night, KKR snatched victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

After defeating RCB by 21 runs, Knight Riders climbed to seventh place in the points table. Batting first, KKR collected 200 runs after losing 5 wickets. The innings of Royal Challengers stopped at 179 runs after losing 8 wickets. Due to this defeat, RCB is fifth in the standings with 8 points playing 8 matches.

After winning the toss, Royal Challengers captain Virat Kohli invited KKR to bat first. However, KKR had problems with the team’s batting order from the beginning of the tournament. All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan withdrew his name due to some personal reasons and Jason Roy was called up as his replacement.

The 32-year-old English opener scored the team’s highest 43 runs on his debut for KKR. He was the team’s best batsman in the next match as well. He scored 61 runs off just 26 balls against CSK. However, he came down to bat as the fifth batsman for KKR in that match.

The team did not benefit from changing Roy’s batting order either. Both of his innings went in vain as the Knight Riders lost. Roy picked up another quick fifty coming down to open the innings for his team yesterday. But this time he did not have to leave the field with regret. On the contrary, Kohli’s fighting fifty has faded in his innings of 56 runs. KKR finally got a comfortable win on the day.

The two openers Jason Roy and Narayan Jagadeesan got off to a great start for KKR. They made an opening pair of 83 runs in 9.2 overs. Narayan got out after scoring 27 runs off 29 balls. Roy played a stormy innings of 56 runs off 29 balls. He smashed 5 sixes with 4 boundaries.

In the 10th over, when both Roy-Jagadeesan got out, KKR’s run flow decreased. However, captain Nitish’s devastating innings of 48 runs and Rinku and David Wiese’s cameo at the end made the Knight Riders reach the 200 runs mark.

However, the credit for KKR’s 69 runs in the last 5 overs goes to the fielders of Royal Challengers. Nitish got a life to stay on 5 and 19 runs. After that, he came out of the shell. Nitish scored 20 runs in the first 13 balls and scored 28 runs in the next 8 balls. Venkatesh Iyer scored 31 runs off 26 balls. Rinku scored 18 runs off 10 balls. Wiese made 12 runs off 3 balls.

Wanindu Hasaranga and Vijaykumar Vyshak got 2 wickets each for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Mohammed Siraj took 1 wicket.

Royal Challengers dreamed of winning with the bat of Kohli. He played an innings of 54 runs off 37 balls. But his innings could not play any role to bring victory to his team. Faf du Plessis got out with 17 runs off 7 balls. Shahbaz Ahmed scored 2 runs and Glenn Maxwell scored 5 runs. Mahipal Lomror made 34 runs off 18 balls. Dinesh Karthik scored 22 runs off 18 balls.

In the end, RCB was able to score 179 runs by losing 8 wickets due to the bowling cannon of the KKR bowlers. Varun Chakaravarthy was selected as the player of the match for Knight Riders picking up 3 wickets with conceding 27 runs in 4 overs. Besides, Andre Russell and Suyash Sharma scalped 2 wickets each.

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders Scoreboard

Kolkata Knight Riders – 200/5 (20.0)

Royal Challengers Bangalore – 179/8 (20.0)

Result – Kolkata Knight Riders won by 21 runs

Player of the match – Varun Chakaravarthy

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XIs