| Scores | Upcoming | Results |
Kolkata Knight Riders 204 for 7 (Thakur 68, Gurbaz 57, Willey 2-16) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 123 (du Plessis 23, Varun 4-15, Suyash 3-30) by 81 runs
Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders bounced back after defeat against Punjab Kings in their opener to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 81 runs in Match 9 of the TATA IPL 2023 at the Eden Gardens on Thursday night.
Shardul Thakur's stunning counter-attacking innings of 68(29) coupled with calculated knocks from Rahmanullah Gurbaz (57 off 44) and Rinku Singh (46 off 33) helped KKR post a daunting 204/7 after recovering from 89/5.
The KKR spinners then came to the party as Varun Chakravarthy (4/15), Sunil Narine (2/16) and debutant Suyash Sharma (3/30) spun a web around the RCB batters to bowl them out for 123 and win the match by 81 runs.
Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bowl.
They made one change to the side as David Willey replaced the injured Reece Topley.
RCB named Finn Allen, Sonu Yadav, Mahipal Lomror, Suyash Prabhudessai and Anuj Rawat as their substitutes.
Kolkata Knight Riders too made one change as Venkatesh Iyer replaced Anukul Roy. They named Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, N Jagadeesan and David Wiese as their substitutes.
Shardul Thakur strode out and turned the tables with a stunning counter-attack. He took the aggressive route straightaway as he smashed a couple of fours and a six off Akash Deep to accumulate 19 runs off the over.
He then muscled a slog sweep off Karn Sharma for a four and then went after Bracewell to hit consecutive sixes to bring up the 50-run stand with Rinku Singh off just 21 balls.
KKR scored 46 in three overs (13 to 15) but Willey again pulled things back a bit giving away just seven off his final over to finish with excellent figures of 4-1-16-2.
Shardul Thakur brought up his maiden IPL fifty, off just 20 balls as he smacked one over mid-wicket for a four off Harshal Patel.
The pair garnered 13 off the Harshal over and were unstoppable as they took the attack to Siraj, scoring 15 off the 18th over.
Rinku brought up the 100-run stand as he went berserk against Harshal hitting him for a four and a couple of sixes but Harshal fought back to have him caught behind off a short ball off the last ball of the over.
Shardul continued to smash any and everything as he cracked one over extra cover for a four off Siraj in the last over.
The pacer however hit back to dismiss Shardul (68 off 29) off a short ball three balls later.
Umesh Yadav took them past 200 with six runs off two balls as KKR recovered from 89/5 to post 204/7.
KKR introduced Suyash Sharma as their Impact player in place of Venkatesh Iyer at the start of their bowling innings.
