In the match 9th of the Indian Premier League 2023, Faf Du Plessis, the captain of the RCB, decided to put KKR into bat at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. His decision paid dividends as the Knight Riders lost three quick wickets within 50 runs. Rahmanullah Gurbaz kept the score ticking over and created a decent partnership with Rinku Singh to bring KKR back into the contest.
Also Read: KKR vs RCB 2023 Live Score | IPL 2023 Live Score | IPL 2023 Points Table
But when Karn Sharma took back-to-back wickets of Gurbaz and Russell, Kolkata Knight Riders were reduced to 89/5 in the 12th over and they were looking down the barrel once again. Shardul Thakur walked out to bat at no. 7 and somehow survived the hat-trick ball from Karn Sharma.
After playing out the spinner, Shardul Thakur immediately went on the attack against Akash Deep and smashed him for back-to-back boundaries to kickstart his innings. In the same over, he picked up a massive six off the free hit to give some much-needed impetus to the KKR batting effort.
Shardul Thakur ended up stitching a 103-run stand with Rinku Singh to put Kolkata Knight Riders in a commanding position and scored 68 off 29 balls with 9 boundaries and 3 sixes to send Twitter into a feeding frenzy. A Twitterati sang the praises for him and wrote, “Lord Shardul Thakur played an inning of his lifetime.” Thakur was later awarded with the Player of the Match from Shahrukh Khan's daughter.
Some of the best reactions to his incredible innings are as under: