IPL 2023 | Shardul lords over Royal Challengers after Gurbaz’s half century as KKR surges to 204

Rahmanullah Gurbaz stood tall amid the ruins with a maiden IPL fifty before Shardul Thakur’s counter-attacking 68 from 29 balls propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to an imposing 204 for seven against Royal Challengers Bangalore here on Thursday.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz stood tall amid the ruins with a maiden IPL fifty before Shardul Thakur's counter-attacking 68 from 29 balls propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to an imposing 204 for seven against Royal Challengers Bangalore here on Thursday.

On a day explosive KKR batter Andre Russell fell for a golden duck, Gurbaz (57; 44b) laid the foundation before Thakur showed his mettle as a powerhitter to take them past 200-mark after RCB opted to bowl.

First, it was the Afghanistan recruit who revived their fortunes from a sloppy start, before Thakur came in at No 7 to give the team a final flourish in an entertaining 103-run (47b) sixth wicket partnership with Rinku Singh (46; 33b).

The duo lit up the show after Karn Sharma gave a double blow claiming Gurbaz and Russell off successive deliveries in the 12th over.

On a pitch that had true bounce and carry, David Willey exposed KKR's fragile top-order, when the England leftarm pacer knocked over Venkatesh Iyer (3) and Mandeep Singh (0) off successive deliveries inside the powerplay.

Promoted to open, Venkatesh looked out of sorts and was done in by a sharp incoming delivery that had low bounce, while Mandeep was clueless to an away going delivery.

It turned from bad to worse for KKR when a reverse-sweeping Nitish Rana (1) got out following a good review from RCB in the very first ball after powerplay.