Picture Credit: Twitter
In the sixth match of the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are locking horns at the DY Patil Stadium. In a match for which fans wait for the whole year, RCB got an upper hand with some early wickets. Akash Deep opened the floodgates by dismissing Venkatesh Iyer on the very first ball of his first over.
After Deep, Mohammed Siraj also struck to remove KKR's second opener. Deep came back to remove Nitish Rana in his second over. While it was pacers in the powerplay, it was all Wanindu Hasaranga post that. The wrist spinner's first victim of the day was KKR captain Shreyas Iyer. He backed that wicket with two back-to-back scalps in his next over. Hasaranga first dismissed Sunil Narine who was slowly getting in the groove and then bamboozled Sheldon Jackson with a beautiful googly.
Watch Hasaranga's back-to-back wickets here:
Jubilation for Hasaranga!
The right-arm leg-break bowler shattered the hopes of KKR with his fiery spell. Apart from Sunil Narine and Sheldon Jackson, Hasarnaga also dismissed KKR captain Shreyas Iyer and Tim Southee. He only conceded 20 runs in his four overs in the process. After a horrible outing against Punjab, Hasaranga and RCB management would be much relieved.
Other than the leggie, all other bowlers also stepped up. While Akash Deep chipped in with three wickets, Harshal Patel ended the innings with brilliant figures of 4-2-11-2. Patel did not concede a single run in his first two overs and also took two wickets, including Andre Russell's. Mohammed Siraj also got the important wicket of Ajinkya Rahane as he dismissed the batter with a short-pitch delivery.
Meanwhile, after failures from the top and middle order, KKR lower-order batters stepped up. Umesh Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy formed a crucial 27-run stand to propel KKR's total to 128.