Images from the IPL 2024 match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday.
Opener Phil Salt scored an aggressive 48 and effected a last-ball run-out as Kolkata Knight Riders beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by one run in the IPL match in Kolkata on Sunday.
Brisk half-centuries by Will Jacks and Rajat Patidar were not enough for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who slumped to their seventh straight defeat in eight games.
KKR moved up to second spot with 10 points, after five wins and two defeats.
Jacks (55, 32b, 4x5, 5x6) and Patidar (52, 23b, 3x4, 5x6) kept RCB in hunt but they could not chase down the daunting 223 target set by KKR.
RCB ended up with 221 all out despite a last over blitz by Karn Sharma (20, 7b, 3x6).
Andre Russell grabbed three wickets (3/25) while Sunil Narine and Harshit Rana grabbed two each for the home side.
Earlier, skipper Shreyas Iyer's composed half-century and Salt's initial blitzkrieg enabled KKR 222 for 6.
Salt smashed 48 off 16 balls while skipper Iyer scored 50 off 36.
Ramandeep Singh (24) and Andre Russell (27) took the KKR total past the 220-run mark.
Cameron Green was the most successful RCB bowler with figures of 2 for 35.
Karn Sharma's scarcely believable last-over assault on Mitchell Starc gave Royal Challengers Bengaluru a glimmer of hope, but the Riders kept their nerves to eke out a dramatic victory.
RCB required 21 runs off the last over, bowled by left-arm pacer Starc. The result seemed a foregone conclusion with Karn and Mohammed Siraj at the crease, but the former nearly turned the match on its head.
Karn, a leg-spinner with no real pedigree with the bat, hammered three sixes off Starc to reduce the margin to three runs off two balls. However, Starc redeemed himself by taking a return catch to dismiss Karn (20, 7b, 3x6) and Lockie Ferguson was run-out off the last ball.
Jacks and Patidar laid a fine foundation through a 102-run alliance for the third wicket that came off just 48 balls. But from 137 for 2, RCB soon slipped to 155 for 6, Russell inflicting a double blow dismissing both Jacks and Russell inside three balls with clever variation of slower balls.
Narine also claimed two wickets in his final over to reduce RCB to 155 for 6 before Dinesh Karthik kept their hopes alive in a splendid partnership with 'Impact Sub' Suyash Prabhudesai.
Returning to bowl in the penultimate over, Russell dismissed Karthik with a slower ball to make the equation tougher for RCB -- 21 runs off six balls.
Karn nearly dragged RCB over the line but the Eden Gardens night belonged to Salt and the Knights as they aced the final moments of a heart-stopper.
Earlier, Virat Kohli began with a first-ball boundary and pulled Harshit Rana for a six in the first over before taking on Starc with disdain.
He backed away to a delivery on his legs to hammer it over fine-leg and the whole Eden was chanting 'Kohli, Kohli'. But his innings was cut short in debatable fashion when he was given out to a delivery that seemed a waist-high full toss with Rana taking a return catch.
He was out of his crease at the time of impact but the replays confirmed that the ball was dipping in its trajectory and the decision was upheld upon review.
Kohli was seen in an animated discussion with the on-field umpire before leaving the field, his anger in full view.
In the next over, Varun Chakravathy dismissed Faf du Plessis for a 7-ball 7 and KKR applied the breaks on RCB.
On a day when Sunil Narine (10) failed to get going, Salt, the world's No. 2 T20I batter, was on fire. He smashed three sixes and seven fours to give KKR an explosive start, which later was exploited to the hilt by Iyer, who stroked a fluent 50 from 36 balls.
However, the under-fire RCB bowling unit made a spirited effort to reduce KKR to 75/3 at the end of power play, as KKR lost four wickets in 26 balls in that crucial middle-phase.
Venkatesh Iyer (16) and Rinku Singh (24) failed to convert their starts as RCB kept chipping away at the KKR batting order. But Iyer held his nerves to produce his 20th IPL fifty, his first fifty this season, as KKR kept moving along.
He was dismissed off next ball after completing his fifty from 35 balls.
Russell was unusually quiet during his 27 from 20 balls. It was Ramandeep's cameo of 24 from nine balls with two fours and two sixes that lifted them to their third successive 200-plus total at the Eden Gardens.
Mohammed Siraj bowled wisely with his yorkers and wide yorkers for his 1/40, while Cameron Green was the best among RCB bowlers returning with 2/35. Yash Dayal also picked 2/56 but was gave away one too many runs.
Fresh from his maiden T20 century, Narine struggled to get going as RCB bowlers kept him quiet with a mix of yorkers both at his pads and outside off.
Narine took eight balls to get off the mark, and Dayal nailed him with a toe-crushing yorker leaving him in pain in the second over.
But it was business as usual for Salt as KKR went past the 50-run mark in 3.5 overs. The Englishman was particularly ruthless against Lockie Ferguson in the fourth over that yielded 28 runs.
Salt dealt only in boundaries, smacking the New Zealand pacer for two sixes and four fours in his opening over.
Siraj finally brought an end to Salt's assault, dismissing him two runs shy of a well-deserved fifty as the right-hander failed to clear square leg boundary to be caught by Rajat Patidar.
Dayal's twin breakthrough of Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi in the final over of Powerplay put the home team in disarray, even as their 12-plus run rate was a big respite. Narine was beaten by a slower ball and ended up skying a catch to Kohli at long-on, while it was Green's blinder of a catch that yielded Raghuvanshi's wicket.
