IPL 2024: With Venkatesh Iyer’s half-century and Sunil Narayan’s stormy innings, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) registered their second consecutive win in the Indian Premier League by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by seven wickets at their own home ground on Friday.
Chasing RCB’s target of 183 runs, Knight Riders won with 19 balls to spare due to the stormy innings of Venkatesh (50 runs, 30 balls, 4 sixes, 3 fours) and Narayan (47 runs, 22 balls, 5 sixes, 2 fours). Registered an easy victory by scoring 186 runs for three wickets. Narayan and Phil Salt (30 runs, 20 balls, 2 sixes, 2 fours) gave the team a flying start by adding 86 runs in 6.3 overs for the first wicket.
After this, Venkatesh made the path to victory easier by adding 75 runs for the third wicket with captain Shreyas Iyer (39 not out, 24 balls, 2 fours, 2 sixes). KKR thus became the first team to defeat the host team in the current season.
Earlier, RCB scored 182 runs for six wickets thanks to Virat Kohli’s unbeaten inning of 83 runs in 59 balls with four sixes and four fours. Kohli also made a partnership of 65 runs for the second wicket with Cameron Green (33 runs) and 42 runs for the third wicket with Glenn Maxwell (28 runs). Dinesh Karthik finally scored 20 runs in eight balls with the help of three sixes.
Narayan and Salt gave a stormy start to KKR while chasing the target. Salt started off Siraj with two sixes and a four in the first over while Narayan hit two sixes on Alzarri Joseph in the third over. Narayan targeted Yash Dayal in the sixth over and scored 21 runs with two sixes and one four.
KKR scored 85 runs without losing any wicket in the power play, which is the highest score of any team in the first six overs in the current season. Mayank Dagar gave the first success to RCB by bowling Narayan in the seventh over. In the next over, Vijay Kumar Visakh got Salt caught by Green at deep square leg, taking the Knight Riders score to 92 runs for two wickets.
Venkatesh completed the team’s century with a six on Dagar in the ninth over and then hit two sixes and two fours in Joseph’s over. Venkatesh completed his half-century in 29 balls with sixes and one run on Siraj. KKR needed only 16 runs to win in the last five overs.
Venkatesh caught Kohli on Dayal’s ball but Iyer and Rinku Singh (05 not out) easily took the team to the target. Meanwhile, with Venkatesh’s catch, Kohli equaled Suresh Raina’s record of most catches of 109 in IPL. Iyer won the toss and decided to bowl first.
Kohli opened the account with a four on the first ball of the innings of Mitchell Starc (47 runs without wicket) while captain Faf Du Plessis (08) hit a six on Harshit Rana but the fast bowler’s next ball was hit into the hands of Starc at short third man. Played. In the next over, Kohli hit a six and a four on consecutive balls from Starc while Green also opened his account with a four.