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Spin trio of Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and debutant Suyash Sharma wreaked havoc as Kolkata Knight Riders thrashed Royal Challengers Bangalore by 81 runs to register their first win of IPL 2023 on return to Eden Gardens after four years, here on Thursday.
After Shardul Thakur slammed the joint-fastest fifty of the season while Rahmanullah Gurbaz hit a stroke-filled half-century and Rinku Singh chipped in with a vital 46 to propel KKR to a mammoth 204/7, Kolkata's three mystery spinners bamboozled the RCB batters to bowl them out for 123 in 17.4 overs. While Narine set the base for the demolition job with 2/16 in four overs, Chakaravarthy was the star of the show with his quicker deliveries and getting some skid to pick 4/15 in 3.4 overs and bowled 13 dot balls. The 19-year old Suyash left a huge impression in his very first game of professional cricket through his spell of 3/30 in four overs, with 11 dot balls to show. Virat Kohli began the chase of 205 clipping a half-volley outside leg stump from Umesh Yadav for four and ended the opening over with another boundary slashed in the gap between third man and backward point. He and Faf du Plessis hit Tim Southee for two fours and as many sixes each in the fourth over yielding 23 runs. But from there, the Narine-Chakravarthy show began to blow away RCB. Kohli played across the line against Narine, but missed the ball and was castled through the gate in the fifth over. In the next over, du Plessis went for an expansive drive against a fuller ball from Chakravarthy but got an inside edge to his stumps. In his next over, Chakaravarthy's quicker googly beat the inside edge of Glenn Maxwell to crash into the stumps. Two balls later, he ended Harshal Patel's promotion by extracting an inside edge to crash into the stumps. More misery followed Bangalore as Shahbaz Ahmed picked out deep point with his reverse sweep off Narine, as half the side was back in the hut in 8.5 overs. Michael Bracewell put up some resistance with two boundaries, but gloved a pull off Thakur to diving short fine leg. Impact player Anuj Rawat tried to slog-sweep against debutant spinner Suyash, but found short third man. Three balls later, Suyash struck again when Dinesh Karthik went for the loft, but outside edge flew to short third man. In his next over, Suyash had Karn Sharma sweeping to slip and got his wicket as replays showed a faint bottom edge. Varun finished off the proceedings by keeping his eyes on the ball and running to mid-wicket to complete a stunning caught and bowled dismissal of Akash Deep. Brief Scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 204/7 in 20 overs (Shardul Thakur 68, Rahmanullah Gurbaz 57; David Willey 2/16, Karn Sharma 2/26) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 123 all out in 17.4 overs (Faf du Plessis 23, Virat Kohli 21; Varun Chakaravarthy 4/15, Suyash Sharma 3/30) by 81 runs --IANS nr/ak ( 516 Words) 2023-04-06-23:28:02 (IANS)
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