After losing against KKR, RCB captain Faf du Plessis said, “Virat Kohli was struggling to…”

NEW DELHI: Venkatesh Iyer’s explosive fifty was the main factor in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ decisive seven-wicket victory against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their IPL match on Friday.

The Knight Riders were able to surpass the 183-run target set by the RCB, led by Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 83, thanks to an innings of 50 runs from 30 balls that included three fours and four sixes from Venkatesh and two explosive performances from Sunil Narine (47 runs off 22 balls, including two fours and five sixes) and Phil Salt (30 runs off 20 balls, including two fours and two sixes).

The RCB bowlers and the sluggish surface did not deter the KKR batsmen, who kept up their pace and achieved the goal in only 16.5 overs with a masterful show of batting ability.

“Strange one, first innings, we thought that the wicket was very two-paced; you could see that when the guys bowled the cutters, back of a length, the guys really struggled,” RCB captain Faf du Plessis remarked, expressing shock at the two-paced character of the pitch. Given that it becomes a little bit easier in the evening and that some dew did enter, we felt that the score was reasonable. Considering how we batted in the first inning, Virat was finding it difficult to smash the ball due to the two-paceness and lack of pace, even with someone in there.”

(Is there anything that might have been done differently during the ball powerplay?). After the game, you can always tell. We might suggest trying one or two things, but the way Narine and Slat were hitting the ball—some really excellent batting there—put pressure on our bowlers. They almost ended the game with powerful cricket strokes.”You should employ pace upfront while Narine is there since you can’t really go to spin. I think that’s a great fit for Salt’s style of play as well. They were outstanding, taking the game apart in the first six overs. We’ve tried the finger spinners with Maxi; they appear to work well here, but the spin wasn’t too strong at night. One thing you can do is bowl a spinner with a left-hand-right-hand mix.

However, as you saw during Venky’s matchup with the left-arm spinner, you get the impression that hitting a little boundary with spin is simple. The ideal player would be able to spin the ball both ways, but given our team’s configuration today, it wasn’t possible.”
“Excellent; Vyshak hasn’t had many chances. After looking at things in the first inning, we considered putting in Karn Sharma. However, we believed that the most challenging bowler to face on this surface is someone who could bowl extremely well slower balls. Probably 80% of the balls that Dr. Russ bowled were cutters. He was the night’s finest bowler, and we learned a few things from that,” Du Plessis said.