Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) took on Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their season opener at the iconic stadium Eden Gardens.
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Star batsmen Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers set the stage to take the team to a huge total. However, an inspired captaincy move on part of Dinesh Karthik to bowl trump card Nitish Rana changed the course of the game.
Nitish Rana sent both the batsmen back to the pavilion in two consecutive balls and stole the momentum from RCB
KKR had won the toss and had elected to field.
Brendon McCullum gave a good start to his team and played a crucial partnership with skipper Virat Kohli.
After McCullum was bowled, AB De Villiers came in and was looking in red-hot form as he was smashing the balls into the stands.
Karthik gave the ball to the uncapped Nitish Rana who had just bowled one over in the IPL before this. To no surprise, he was hit for a six off the first ball.
But then what we saw what nothing less than incredible. In the next delivery, Rana got ABD who was looking to pull the ball for a six to mid-wicket.
He top-edged the ball and Johnson took the catch and AB was gone for 44 off 23 balls. Kohli and ABD had crossed when the ball was in the air and thus Kohli was set to face the next ball from Rana.
Rana bowled a full-length Yorker, Kohli was late to bring down his bat and e was bowled by Rana and Rana picked back to back two valuable wickets.
As expected, wild celebrations followed and Rana couldn’t keep his emotions under control. He along with Dinesh Karthik gave Kohli a fiery send-off.
Here’s the clip:
RCB posted a total of 170 which was chased down by KKR with 7 balls to spare.
KKR will play their next game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on 10th April.
