God works in mysterious ways. And so does Shardul Thakur.
Against RCB, in front of their passionate home crowd at the Eden, KKR were down in the doldrums when Andre Russell, showing a lack of game sense Shahid Afridi would be proud of, holed out to long-on for a golden duck, leaving his side reeling at 89/5 in 11.3 overs.
And then came a thrilling, highly-entertaining, almost unbelievable, career-defining, spectrum-changing partnership of 103 (47) between two social-media-proclaimed ‘Lords’: Shardul Thakur and Rinku Singh.
Similar to the ‘Sir’ preceding Ravindra Jadeja’s name, social media had started the ‘Lord’ terms for Shardul Thakur and Rinku Singh for fun, for mockery, for entertainment to pay a tribute to the entertainers they are.
KKR didn’t need any ‘Qudary Ka Nizaam’ today. Because they had the two Lords working for them.
Shardul Thakur played a whirlwind, jaw-dropping knock of 68 runs off only 29 balls. Partnering with him, Rinku Singh scored 46 off 33 balls. Thakur smashed 3 sixes and so did Rinku, but Shardul also walloped 9 fours, 7 more than Rinku did as the left-hander held his end for a major part of his innings, letting Shardul do Shardul things.
Their astonishing partnership didn’t drag, but propelled KKR from 89/5 to a total in excess of 200. The fans went from ‘Can KKR go past 150?’ to ‘Will they get to 200?’ And they did, courtesy of the Lords.
Social media erupted with each sizzling shot from Shardul Thakur vs RCB:
Lord Shardul .. Lord Rinku ..
Zabardast clean hitting #RcbvKKR— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) April 6, 2023
Lord Shardul Thakur🔥🥵 pic.twitter.com/iTOWpFOenr
— Pulkit🇮🇳 (@pulkit5Dx) April 6, 2023
Faf Du Plessis: We Did Well in Powerplay and Middle overs, We Can restrict KKR under 140
Lord Rinku and Lord Shardul pic.twitter.com/5sy27py6mO
— Pulkit🇮🇳 (@pulkit5Dx) April 6, 2023
Lord Shardul Thakur entering dressing room after playing 68(29) at Eden Gardens 🤞✨..#KKRvRCB #IPL2023 #RCBvsKKR pic.twitter.com/xbvWu8LtoP
— Ashutosh Srivastava 🇮🇳 (@sri_ashutosh08) April 6, 2023
New owner of haarcb 💜🔥
Welcome to the club Lord Shardul#KKRvsRCB pic.twitter.com/AepsLTnU6N— 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐀 𝐘𝐀𝐆𝐀 (@yaga_18) April 6, 2023
"Eden cried as he walked back… SRK has his hands on heart out of respect. Flags are high, and so is the spirit. This is Lord Shardul universe."
— Silly Point (@FarziCricketer) April 6, 2023
Lord shardul in today's match. #KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/lmySwR9kJZ
— Prayag (@theprayagtiwari) April 6, 2023
RCB: Russell out, ab to KKR gayi
Lord Shardul Thakur : pic.twitter.com/F00W5OtpvE
— Pakchikpak Raja Babu (@HaramiParindey) April 6, 2023
Lord Shardul for the Rescue…#KKRvsRCB pic.twitter.com/176heGMgd3
— Cricpedia. (@_Cricpedia) April 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/BoiesX45/status/1643999447817519108?s=20
https://twitter.com/HaramiParindey/status/1644002969560686593?s=20
#KKRvRCB
Lord Shardul RCB pic.twitter.com/Te2rqvkE7U— 🇮🇳 رومانا (@RomanaRaza) April 6, 2023
Lord Shardul 🤝 Lord Rinku #RCBvsKKR pic.twitter.com/mhAAD0NSdS
— Aman_Chain 🇮🇳 (@Amanprabhat9) April 6, 2023
Lord Shardul Thakur be like:- pic.twitter.com/libiHWnCe4
— Adi (@Adiiwe_we) April 6, 2023
Earlier, Faf du Plessis had won the toss and elected to field first. His move was vindicated by David Willey, who dismissed Venkatesh Iyer and Mandeep Singh on consecutive deliveries in the 4th over. Bracewell and Karn Sharma then struck to have KKR in trouble at 89/5 before Shardul Thakur and Rinku Singh delivered a stunning counter-attack.
KKR (Playing XI): Mandeep Singh,Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
RCB (Playing XI): Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Glenn Maxwell, Michael Bracewell, Dinesh Karthik(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Harshal Patel, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
KKR Substitutes: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, N Jagadeesan, David Wiese
RCB Substitutes: Finn Allen, Sonu Yadav, Mahipal Lomror, Suyash Prabhudessai, Anuj Rawat
