Kolkata Knight Riders won by 21 runs over Royal Challengers Bangalore at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on April 26 in the IPL 2023. Royal Challengers Bangalore won the toss and opted to bowl. Put into bat, KKR opener Jason Roy scored a quickfire 56 runs in 29 balls. Later, Nitish Rana also scored a quick 48 and helped the side put up a decent total of 200.

While chasing, Royal Challengers Bangalore got off to a flying start but that didn’t stay long as they lost Faf du Plessis very cheaply. Although Virat Kohli scored another fifty and Mahipal Lomror scored an 18-ball 34, their efforts went in vain as they could manage 179 runs, eventually losing the encounter as well.

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Here is what the captains and the player of the match said after the game:

Varun Chakaravarthy, Player of the Match said as quoted by Cricbuzz: Last match I went for 49 and this match I did well. That’s how crazy life is. (This year) More focused on accuracy rather than more variations. I didn’t want to add more variations. I have been working a lot and I’d like to credit AC Pratheepan – he’s been working for me and even Abhishek Nayar. I’d like to thank them. I like that challenge (to bowl the difficult overs) and Nitish is giving the ball whenever he wants me to do the job, I am liking it. I’d like to credit this to my new born son, still not able to see him, I’d like to dedicate it to him and my wife.

Nitish Rana said as quoted by Cricbuzz: Last 3-4 matches I’ve been saying the same thing at the toss – if we play well collectively, result will be in our favour. You need a lot of character in the dressing room to give a performance like this in our situation. The belief has always been there that we’ll bounce back. We wanted to put a score on the board. Felt like it would turn in the second innings because there wasn’t much dew. It didn’t turn a lot but we bowled well. Whenever I’ve spoken to him (Suyash Sharma), he has always put his hand up. He always says I’ll do the job. We tell him to not look at who is batting against you, just focus on your own bowling.

Andre Russell said as quoted by Cricbuzz: We really needed that victory. Have been under the pump last couple of games. Batting first tonight, we know once we get a good total on the board – runs on the board is pressure. Our goal was to keep their powerplay under 55. We were able to pull it back in the middle. Batting first or batting second comes down to the amount of runs you’re setting up, and the dew factor. Once I get the ball I try to do my best. Have been struggling in patches with the bat. Still confident, still know what to do. Got a really good yorker, credit to Siraj. Recovery is important to me. The older I get, the more experienced, the more I look after my body.

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Virat Kohli said as quoted by Cricbuzz: To be honest we handed them the game. We did deserve to lose. We handed them a victory. We were certainly not up to standard. If you look at the game, we didn’t capitalize our chances. We dropped a few chances which cost us 25-30 runs. We set up ourselves really well. We ended up hitting the fielder to balls which weren’t wicket taking. It is what’s on the scoreboard and how to get them. Even while chasing, despite losing wickets we were one partnership away from being in the game. We needed one partnership to get us home. We need to be switched on and not give away soft plays. We have won one and lost one on the road. It is not something that is making us nervous. We need to win some away games to be in good shape for the later stages of the tournament.