Who said what? IPL 2023, RCB vs KKR: All-round KKR decimates Virat Kohli-starrer RCB

Eden Gardens: KKR produced an all-round performance on Thursday at iconic Eden Gardens to decimate star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore. While batting first, Rinku Singh and Shardul Thakur rescued former champions from early tremors as the duo stitched match-defining partnership in the 1^st innings to post 204.

In response, Royal Challengers Bangalore had a brilliant start in the powerplay but Varun Chakravarthy and debutant Suyash Sharma rattled RCB’s batting line-up by picking four and three wickets, respectively. Six of the RCB batters could not even reach double digit figures.

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With that win, KKR is now placed at the third position in the points table while RCB is slipped at 7^th in the chart. Let’s look at ‘who said what?’ after Kolkata Knight Riders registered dominating win against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Nitish Rana – Winning Captain

We were seven down but still we fought. Today we showed great fight. Gurbaz played a brilliant knock at the top of the order and Thakur changed the complexion of the game.

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Credit should be given to Rinku as he played second fiddle to Thakur and paced his innings well. Umesh and South started decently with the ball. Suyash is a confident young man and he has belief in himself.

Faf-du-Plessis – Loosing captain

We had set it up nicely with the ball, probably at 100/5 around 13 overs, we kind of gave away 20-25 runs extra on that wicket. Shardul played incredibly well, he took the game away from us and KKR’s leg-spinners bowled brilliantly.

The game of T20 cricket moves so fast, we will try and learn our lessons, just making sure we tweak things we work on.

Shardul Thakur – Player of the Match

I don’t even know from where it came from but looking at the scoreboard at that time, everyone would have thought we are struggling. But your subconscious mind takes over. You also have to have skills to do that at the higher level, but we also work hard in the nets.

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