Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered their first loss of the season against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens in IPL 2023. Varun Chakravarthy proved to be a game-changer for KKR. Chakravarthy dismissed RCB’s captain Faf du Plessis with his magical ball which proved to be a turning point in the game.

Kolkata Knight Riders batting 1st scored 204/7 courtesy of some late fireworks by Shardul Thakur & Rinku Singh. Thakur scored his maiden IPL fifty. The right-hander smashed 68 runs in 29 balls. Rinku Singh played a handy knock scoring 46 runs from 33 balls.

In reply to Kolkata Knight Riders‘ massive target, Royal Challengers Bangalore openers got off to a perfect start. Both the openers added 44 runs for the 1st wicket in 4.5 overs. Sunil Narine cleaned up Kohli with an off-spinning delivery.

The turning point of the match came in the 5th over of RCB’s 2nd innings. RCB’s captain Faf du Plessis looked in great touch got baffled by Varun Chakravarthy’s magical ball. Faf tried to force a fullish ball outside off stump to the off-side and gets surprised by the turn as the ball takes a tiny inside edge and hits the middle stump.

Here is how Faf du Plessis got out:

ICYMI – TWO outstanding deliveries. Two massive wickets.

Sunil Narine & Varun Chakaravarthy get the #RCB openers early on.

Follow the match – https://t.co/J6wVwbsfV2#TATAIPL | #KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/GvL1U1GRWW

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 6, 2023

Faf du Plessis’ lack of footwork caused his downfall as he failed to clearly pick the googly bowled by Varun Chakravarthy.

Varun Chakravarthy went on to pick up 4 wickets in the match in 3.4 overs. Suyash Sharma substituted in as an impact player in place of Venkatesh Iyer picked up 3 wickets. Sunil Narine picked up 2 wickets and Shardul Thakur ends with a wicket as KKR hand RCB a huge loss of 81 runs on their homecoming.

Faf du Plessis shares his thoughts on loss and praises Varun Chakravarthy

Faf du Plessis in the post match interview said: “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 Varun Chakravarthy, they put the squeeze on us really well. Because that’s the nature of leg spinners or mystery spinners.”

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