It was not bad as the 49 all-out, but it was equalling shocking and nightmarish as one by one the RCB batters succumbed to the spin mastery of Sunil Narine and trickery of Varun Chakaravarthy in the chase of a mountain of 205 on Thursday.
The match swung astonishingly. From KKR reeling at 89/5 to being propelled to 204 via a jaw-dropping partnership of 103 (47) between Shardul Thakur and Rinku Singh; then Virat and Faf du Plessis got RCB off to a rocking start of 44 runs in 4.4 overs before a shocking collapse which left them struggling at 61/5 and all but out of the chase.
Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy stunned the RCB batters as the first 4 of the 5 dismissals were BOWLED.
Bamboozled is the word.
Kohli looked to work Narine on the on side but missed the ball, which spun sharply and went through his pad-bat gap to rattle the stumps. Du Plessis went for an expansive drive on the off-side to Chakaravarthy, but inside-edged it onto the stumps.
Left-hander Shahbaz Ahmed could have avoided his reverse sweep to Narine. He didn’t in a good shape to play that shot and was caught on the deep point boundary.
Royal Challengers Bangalore collapse to Kolkata Knight Riders spinners led to a spate of memes on Twitter:
RCB batting lineup against spin #KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/6yeBBepOtu
— Anurag Dwivedi ๐ (@AnuragxCricket) April 6, 2023
RCB's impact player pic.twitter.com/hbEEQcn2u6
— Manya (@CSKian716) April 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/HaramiParindey/status/1644022795591114753?s=20
RCB fans during 1st innings
Frist 10 overs After 10 overs pic.twitter.com/byV6O9COvz
— Dark Lord ๐ (@Dark_Loord_) April 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/r_mithran/status/1644019498834599936?s=20
Even the worst-assembled KKR team owns RCB. ๐ญ๐ญ
— Manya (@CSKian716) April 6, 2023
RCB batters telling how to play Narine and Chakravarty. pic.twitter.com/DDjY13RMFr
— yaarivanu_unknownu (@memesmaadonu) April 6, 2023
Life as a RCB fan. ๐ #KKRvsRCB pic.twitter.com/EShvK3AmOo
— Anurag Dwivedi ๐ (@AnuragxCricket) April 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/Stormtweets_/status/1644015195357069312?s=20
https://twitter.com/Basavachethanah/status/1644019727218384898?s=20
One Bad match and they forgot who we are๐ฅ
Vintage RCB is back, let the street knows๐ pic.twitter.com/BcAWVm8ZBy— ๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐จ (@SergioCSKK) April 6, 2023
RCB back in form.#KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/mVn7Y4I2Tm
— Krishna (@Atheist_Krishna) April 6, 2023
After watching RCB performance today: #KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/5ltcGHyUqJ
— Aman_Chain ๐ฎ๐ณ (@Amanprabhat9) April 6, 2023
RCB batsman in todays match:#KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/cb98sF5oiR
— Prayag (@theprayagtiwari) April 6, 2023
RCB ( clown's) condition Right now….
— หโ โฅโ ห๐๐ท๐ซ๐พยฐ๐๐พ๐ซโ ^โก…๐ถ๐ฅ (@DvSuruli02) April 6, 2023
RCB's impact player. pic.twitter.com/ovaal75tDw
— yaarivanu_unknownu (@memesmaadonu) April 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/Harsh_humour/status/1644023260357750784?s=20
KKR BOWLERS TO RCB BATTING LINE UP ๐ญ๐คฃhttps://t.co/rpglHXmtgs
— Karthikeya (@naidu7kartikeya) 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):ย Mandeep Singh,Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh,ย Andre Russell,ย Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine,ย Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
RCB (Playing XI):ย Virat Kohli,ย Faf du Plessis(c),ย Glenn Maxwell,ย Michael Bracewell,ย Dinesh Karthik(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Harshal Patel, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
KKR Substitutes:ย Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, N Jagadeesan, David Wiese
RCB Substitutes:ย Finn Allen, Sonu Yadav, Mahipal Lomror, Suyash Prabhudessai, Anuj Rawat
