Whatever was witnessed in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on April 6 at the Eden Gardens ground in Kolkata was astonishing. In their first match in IPL 2023, the team of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), playing the band of Mumbai Indians, was seen taking a knee against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The biggest hero of this victory of KKR was Shardul Thakur, who played a blistering inning of 68 runs off 29 balls. Rahmanullah Gurbaz played an innings of 57 runs, apart from these two, Rinku Singh scored 46 runs from 33 balls for KKR. Former Team India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has praised Shardul Thakur.
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He said on Star Sports, ‘The kind of innings played by Shardul Thakur under pressure was fantastic. He came on the field when half of the KKR batsmen had returned to the dugout. His innings turned the tide of the match. You can expect such innings from Andre Russell, Nitish Rana or Mandeep Singh. The way Shardul showed his beast mode was out of the box. You can expect 30-35 innings from Shardul, but this inning was unbelievable. Which was beyond everyone’s expectations.
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On the basis of Shardul’s innings, KKR scored 204 runs for seven wickets in 20 overs. In response, RCB’s team was reduced to 123 runs in 17.4 overs. Apart from Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, Michael Bracewell and David Willey, no batsman could even reach double figures.
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