Kolkata Knight Riders have won the toss and have invited Royal Challengers Banglore to bat in the third game of IPL 2018. The match is taking place in Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
After 15 overs
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A B deVillers wen on a rampage before being dismissed by Nitish Rana. He made 44 runs off 23 balls. Kohli was dismissed on the very next ball as he struggled to face the spinner. RCB was at 132-4 after 15 overs.
After 10 overs
After giving a decent start to the team, Brendon McCullum was dismissed for 43 by Sunil Narine. A B de Villiers joined Virat Kohli. Despite hitting a few boundaries, Virat seems to be struggling to score runs. On the other hand, de Villiers hit Yadav for two back-to-back sixes. At the end of the 10 overs, RCB was at 82-2.
Story till powerplay
Put into bat by Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Banglore was off to a flying start as T20 specialist Brendon McCullum smashed 14 runs off the very first over by Vinay Kumar. Opener Quinton de Kock was dismissed cheaply by Piyush Chawla. Captain Virat Kohli came into bat kept the scoring rate going, while McCullum was busy punishing the bowlers. They had a partnership of 38 runs in 26 balls. McCullum did the bulk of the scoring as Dinesh Karthik tried variety of slower bowlers like Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla.
At the end of the powerplay, RCB was at 52-1.
Team head to head:
Overall: Matches – 20, Kolkata Knight Riders won – 11, Royal Challengers Bangalore won – 9
At the Eden Gardens: Matches – 8, Kolkata Knight Riders won – 5, Royal Challengers Bangalore won – 3
Trivia ahead of KKR vs RCB match: The captain winning the toss opted to chase in each of the 7 IPL matches played at the Eden Gardens last season.
Kohli scored 1,750 runs as an opener from 43 innings at an average of 53.03
In the seven IPL matches played at the Eden Gardens last season, quick bowlers picked up a total of 61 wickets (at strike-rate of a wicket every 16.5 balls), while the spinners collected 24 wickets at a strike-rate of a wicket every 23 deliveries.
Only 3 players have captained the Kolkata Knight Riders in the ten seasons of the IPL so far – namely Sourav Ganguly, Brendon McCullum and Gautam Gambhir. Dinesh Karthik will become the 4th player to lead the franchise.