IPL 2021 - KKR vs RCB, Eliminator - T20 specialist Narine's 4/21 and 26 terminates RCB

Sunil Narine stuns RCB with his all round performance, Virat Kohli quits RCB captaincy

Kolkata Knight Riders 139 for 6 (Shubman Gill 29, Narine 26, Chahal 16/2, Patel 19/2, Siraj 19/2) beat Royal Challengers 138 for 7 (Kohli 39, Narine 21/4) by four wickets

Virat Kohli plays his last game as captain for RCB: (Getty Images)

Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders clashed heads in the Eliminator game in the 14th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) at Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Bangalore win toss, opt to bat

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat. Both teams didn’t make any changes in their eleven from the previous game.

Bangalore openers made 53 in powerplay but lost Padikkal

Kolkata skipper Eoin Morgan bowled left-arm spinner Shakib Al Hasan straightaway in the first over of the innings, against Bangalore openers Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal. Virat Kohli smacked two back-to-back boundaries in the next over of Shivam Mavi. Also, Padikkal hammered two fours off Lockie Ferguson, however, got clean bowled by the same bowler on the first ball of the fifth over.

Kolkata spinners spark middle-over collapse

Srikar Bharat and Virat Kohli struggled to hit boundaries against spinners Shakib Al Hasan and Varun Chakravarthy. As pressure by spinners built up on batters, Bharat tried to launch a boundary to Sunil Narine over long off but found fielder Venkatesh Iyer.

As Glenn Maxwell started to smack boundaries against the KKR spinners, Eoin Morgan brought speedster Lockie Ferguson on the attack. Kohli also got out while going for a big hit as the ball shattered the stumps through the gap between bat and pad.

AB de Villiers also got clean bowled on 11 off the delivery of Sunil Narine. Bangalore had huge hopes from Maxwell to finish well in death overs, however, he also couldn’t play his shots against Narine and got out on 15. With wickets tumbling in heaps, Bangalore could reach only 138 runs in 20 overs by losing seven wickets.

Narine was wrecker-in-chief, who bagged four wickets conceding only 21 runs, whereas Ferguson picked two wickets.

Kolkata openers give steady start in tricky chase

Kolkata openers Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer bestowed a solid start for their side in the first five overs. This forced Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli to bring Purple Cap holder Harshal Patel, who didn’t disappoint his captain and sent Gill to the pavilion. Gill tried to slog a slower delivery of Patel but the ball took the edge and went in the air to rest in the safe hands of AB de Villiers.

One down batter Rahul Tripathi also lost his wicket on an LBW call by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal with the help of DRS.

New batter Nitish Rana played some extravagant shots to Chahal, however, his partner Venkatesh Iyer lost his wicket as he got caught behind the wicket off the delivery of Patel.

Sunil Narine shines in batting too

Kolkata sent Sunil Narine to get some quick runs. This ploy of Kolkata reaped huge success as Narine smacked three successive sixes off Daniel Christian. However, Rana got out while hitting a slog sweep over the long on boundary, as the ball took a thick edge and got caught by AB de Villiers.

Also, quick wickets of Narine and wicketkeeper batter Dinesh Karthik stretched the game till the final over of the innings.

In the last over, when Kolkata needed seven runs, skipper Morgan struck a boundary off Christian and helped his side win with a single. Kolkata defeated Bangalore by four wickets to qualify for the second qualifier match against Delhi Capitals at Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Wednesday.

Top Twitter Reaction as KKR beat RCB

Here are some of the finest twitter reactions as Kolkata Knight Riders beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by four wickets. Virat Kohli and RCB yet again couldn't lay their hands on IPL Trophy. A lot of fans and former players appreciate KKR's magical turnaround and Virat Kohli's last game as RCB Captain.

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