Rahmanullah Gurbaz stood tall amid the ruins with a maiden IPL fifty before Shardul Thakur's counter-attacking 68 from 29 balls propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to an imposing 204 for seven against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kolkata on Thursday. (More Cricket News) | (Scorecard)
On a day explosive KKR batter Andre Russell fell for a golden duck, Gurbaz (57; 44b) laid the foundation before Thakur showed his mettle as a powerhitter to take them past 200-mark after RCB opted to bowl.
First, it was the Afghanistan recruit who revived their fortunes from a sloppy start, before Thakur came in at No 7 to give the team a final flourish in an entertaining 103-run (47b) sixth wicket partnership with Rinku Singh (46; 33b).
The duo lit up the show after Karn Sharma gave a double blow claiming Gurbaz and Russell off successive deliveries in the 12th over.
On a pitch that had true bounce and carry, David Willey exposed KKR's fragile top-order, when the England leftarm pacer knocked over Venkatesh Iyer (3) and Mandeep Singh (0) off successive deliveries inside the powerplay.
Promoted to open, Venkatesh looked out of sorts and was done in by a sharp incoming delivery that had low bounce, while Mandeep was clueless to an away going delivery.
It turned from bad to worse for KKR when a reverse-sweeping Nitish Rana (1) got out following a good review from RCB in the very first ball after powerplay.
KKR looked in trouble at 47/3 but Gurbaz led the charge against the 'local' Bengal pacer Akash Deep, pulling him for a six before collecting back-to-back boundaries. Overall, he hit six fours and three sixes.
Gurbaz took a review to overturn an LBW decision on 30 and raced to a 38-ball fifty with a powerful sweep over long leg boundary.
Thakur then took Akash Deep to cleaners in his knock studded with nine fours and three sixes.
Apart from Willey (4-1-16-2), none of the RCB bowlers failed to impress and Akash Deep conceded 30 runs from his two overs. Siraj also looked wayward and returned with 1/44 from his four overs.
They also leaked 23 runs in extras.
