IPL 2018 Match 3: Royal Challengers Bangalore Vs Kolkata Knight Riders – Summary and Analysis

Man of the Match: Sunil Narine

1. It was a battle of RCB the batting giants and KKR the team that was relying on its match winners. Both teams were in search to register their first win in the IPL 2018.
2. Kolkata won the toss and elected to field first on their home ground. RCB innings went underway and despite losing Quinton de Kock early they got off to a blazing start.
3. After losing Brendon McCullum, Virat Kohli and Ab de Villiers laid a solid platform for RCB. However, Nitish Rana’s double strike allowed Kolkata Knight Riders to make a comeback in this match.
4. Kolkata seemed to be perfectly in control when Mandeep Singh’s blasting cameo in the death overs acted as a final nail in the coffin. This propelled RCB to a total of 176 runs in 20 overs.
5. KKR now needed 177 runs from 20 overs. YS Chahal was given the new ball but Virat Kohli quickly realized his mistake as Narine went berserk from the very first ball.
6. Narine reached his fourth fastest fifty with good support from the other end. After he got out RCB took the wicket of Uthappa and calmed things down for a little bit.
7. However, KKR captain Dinesh Karthik and Sunil Narine shared an exceptional partnership to steady their team’s ship.
8. And, even after Nitish got out Andre Russell contributed a valuable innings by scoring 15 off 11 balls after Chris Woakes got rid of him.
9. It all came down to Dinesh Karthik and Vinay Kumar in the end. And, both batsmen played quite cautiously to hand KKR their first win for the season.
10. KKR finished this match in the 19^thover with 7 balls to spare and are now leading in the points table of the match. Meanwhile, RCB fought well but they should have scored 20-30 runs more to win this match.

Q de Kock †

V Kohli (c)

AB de Villiers

SN Khan

Mandeep Singh

Washington Sundar

CR Woakes

UT Yadav

K Khejroliya

YS Chahal

xxxxx

SP Narine

RV Uthappa

CA Lynn

KD Karthik (c) †

AD Russell

N Rana

RK Singh

PP Chawla

 R Vinay Kumar

   MG Johnson

Kuldeep Yadav