Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Kolkata Knight Riders in a low-scoring thriller in match six of IPL 2022. In a game that went down to the wire, Faf du Plessis’ side got the better of Shreyas Iyer’s side by three wickets.
Batting first, KKR put up a disappointing show with the bat, managing only 128 runs in their 20 overs. What highlights their poor batting performance is the fact that the top individual score in the team was 25 runs, which were scored by Andre Russell. Openers Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer scored nine and 10 runs respectively. Captain Shreyas Iyer too failed to get going, having scored just 13 off 10. Nitin Rana and Sunil Narine went for a couple of big shots, but both failed to construct an innings. Down the order, bowlers Umesh Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy scored 18 runs combined after Russell contributed with 25 runs.
While most thought that a chase of 129 would be a cakewalk for RCB, KKR bowlers put up a terrific fight to take the game to the last over. Much like KKR, RCB were also a disaster with the bat. Apart from Sherfane Rutherford (28) Shahbaz Ahmed (27) and Harshal Patel’s match-winning twin boundaries, the rest of the batsmen couldn’t do anything significant. Faf du Plessis scored just five runs, while Virat Kohli hit 12.
In the end, RCB needed six to win off the last over with former KKR captain Dinesh Karthik on strike. Karthik hit Russell for two consecutive boundaries to take his new side over the line with four balls to spare.
Earlier in the game, Wanindu Hasaranga picked up four wickets for just 20 runs. He was well supported by Akash Deep and Harshal Patel, who picked up five wickets combined. For KKR, Tim Southee scalped three wickets and Umesh Yadav took two.
Image credit: IPL
