Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 4 wickets in the Eliminator match to make it to Qualifier 2, while RCB’s journey in the tournament came to an end with the loss. Batting first after winning the toss in the match, RCB scored 138/7 and the target of 139 runs was achieved by KKR at the loss of 6 wickets in the last over.
Chasing the match target moment by moment , Kolkata started well. Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer added 41 runs in five overs. This partnership was broken by Purple Cap holder Harshal Patel by dismissing Gill (29). After this, Yuzvendra Chahal got the second success for the team by dismissing Rahul Tripathi (6). Venkatesh Iyer (26) was dismissed by Harshal Patel. The wicket of Nitish Rana (23) came in Chahal’s account.
- In the fourth over of the innings, Shubman Gill hit three consecutive fours against George Garten.
- Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer added 41 runs in 32 balls for the first wicket.
- KKR’s score was 48/1 till the powerplay.
- Sunil Narine opened his account with a six off the very first ball and he hit 3 sixes in an over from Dan Christian.
- Nitish Rana and Sunil Narine added 31 runs in 20 balls for the fourth wicket.
- Sunil Narine (26) and Dinesh Karthik (10) were dismissed by Mohammad Siraj in the 18th over.
- Mohammad Siraj completed his 50 wickets in IPL and 100 wickets in T20 cricket.
RCB appealed for LBW against Kohli’s DRS Rahul Tripathi, but the umpire gave him not-out. After this Virat Kohli took DRS and it was clearly visible in the review that the ball was hit on the first pad and Tripathi (6) returned to the pavilion.
Kohli’s last match as captain
Before the start of Phase-2, Virat Kohli had said in his statement that – This will be my last IPL as the captain of RCB. With the defeat against KKR, the captaincy journey of Captain Kohli for RCB also ended here. Virat was made the captain of RCB in 2013. Under his leadership, the team definitely reached the final, but could not win a single title. Virat captained RCB in 140 matches and managed to win 64 matches. The team had to face defeat in 69. 3 matches were tied and 4 matches ended with no result.
RCB could have scored a big score,
winning the toss and playing first, RCB scored 138/7 in 20 overs. Till the first ten overs, the team’s score was 70 runs for the loss of two wickets and it looked like the team would be able to make a big total and give a tough challenge to KKR, but it did not happen. Bangalore did not play a player in front of Sunil Narine. Lockie Ferguson got the first breakthrough for KKR by dismissing Devdutt Padikkal (21). Narine then took the wickets of Captain Kohli (39), KS Bharat (9), de Villiers (11) and Maxwell (15).
- Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal put on 49 runs for the first wicket.
- Padikkal has scored 411 runs so far this season. Last year also he scored 473 runs in 15 innings.
- RCB’s score was 53/1 till the powerplay.
- KS Bharat and Kohli added 20 runs in 27 balls for the second wicket.
- KS Bharat played a slow innings of 16 balls (9).
- Virat Kohli (39) was dismissed by Sunil Narine for the third time in the IPL.
- Kohli (901) became the second Indian after Shikhar Dhawan (986) to hit 900 fours in T20 cricket.
- This was the third time Sunil Narine (4/21) took four wickets in an innings against RCB.
- This is the 8th time Narine has taken four wickets in an innings. In this case, he left behind Lasith Malinga (7).