IPL 2023: Faf du Plessis SLAMS Batters After KKR Beat RCB at Eden Gardens

Kolkata: At one stage, it seemed Royal Challengers Bangalore are going to humiliate the hosts on Thursday, but that was not to be, thanks to Shardul Thakur. The Knight Riders were reeling at 89 for five and it seemed KKR would get bundled out for a paltry total. A breathtaking partnership between Rinku Singh and Thakur ensured Kolkata get a mammoth 204. Chasing 205 to win, RCB was allout for 123. Following the loss, captain Faf du Plessis blamed the batting outfit. Claiming that it was a good strip to bat on, Faf credited the three mystery spinners of KKR at the presentation.

“We had set it up nicely with the ball, probably at 100/5 around 13 overs, we kind of gave away 20-25 runs extra on that wicket. Shardul played incredibly well, he took the game away from us and KKR’s leg-spinners bowled brilliantly. They got on top of us, with Narine and Chakaravarthy, they put the squeeze on us really well. Because that’s the nature of leg spinners or mystery spinners. It was still a good wicket, our batting was very average and even when we lose games like these we need to ensure that we get close to the target, at least around 160 tonight,” Faf said at the post-match presentation.

Virat Kohli began the chase of 205 by clipping a half-volley outside leg stump from Umesh 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-Chakaravarthy-Suyash annihilated the RCB challenge.

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’s promotion by extracting an inside edge to crash into the stumps.

More misery followed Bangalore as Shahbaz picked out the deep point with his reverse sweep off Narine, as half the side was back in the hut in 8.5 overs. 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 Suyash, but found the 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 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.

(With IANS inputs)