Sunil Narine and Lockie Ferguson shared six
wickets between them as the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) restricted the Royal
Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to a modest 138-run total in the crunch Eliminator match
of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021.

Openers Devdutt Padikkal and Virat Kohli got
the Bangalore outfit to a brisk start, scoring 49 runs in five overs. Padikkal then
played a Ferguson delivery onto his stumps in the first delivery of the sixth over
to give KKR their first breakthrough.

The two-time champions then put the brakes
on RCB’s scoring, conceding just 21 runs in the
next four overs, to pile on the pressure and force the batsman into mistakes.

This is when Sunil Narine started wreaking havoc with his finger spin, dismissing Srikar Bharat (9 from 16), skipper Kohli (39 from 33), AB de Villers (11 from 9) and Glenn Maxwell (15 from 18) in succession to knock the wind out of RCB’s sails. 

Reeling at 112/5, RCB needed a cameo from one of the lower-middle order batsmen to get to a respectable total but Ferguson made sure that did not come to pass, removing Shahbaz Ahmed before effecting Dan Christian’s run out at the death as the Royal Challengers finished well-short of the mark. 

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This was the second time in their last two encounters that the RCB batsmen have completely capitulated against KKR. 

In their last outing against the Knight Riders, in match 31 in Abu Dhabi, RCB were bundled out for just 92 runs. Ferguson took two wickets in that match as well, with Varun Chakravarthy and Andre Russel finishing with three scalps each. 

That target was chased down with ease, with Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer scoring 48 and 41* respectively to end the match with nine wickets and 10 overs to spare. 

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Another highlight from those two games is the fact that RCB, despite all their talented batsmen, failed to score a single six. 

Now, with not enough runs on the board, Kohli is staring at the prospect of his last outing as RCB captain ending in another disappoting defeat. It will be down to the likes of Purple Cap holder Harshal Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal to inspire RCB to victory and keep their hopes of lifting a maiden IPL title alive.