IPL 2018: KKR vs RCB: 3 key points from the match

#2 Impressive Dinesh Karthik and Narine show continues

DK impressed everyone with his captaincy while the Narine show continues

The match also marked the new era of the Kolkata Knight Riders under their new leader Dinesh Karthik who has been in the form of his life for the last few months. In his debut match as skipper, he impressed the pundits as well as the fans. He was calm, always communicating with his bowlers and rotated his bowling options according to the situation.

His best moment of impromptu decisions came when he introduced the part-time off-spinner Nitish Rana into the attack against the aggressive duo of Virat Kohli and AB Devilliers. Both started shifting gears and were going at around 14 runs per over. But Karthik’s instinctive decision paid off instantly and Rana scalped both of them in successive deliveries. Those two quick wickets changed the complexion of the game and the Royal Challengers’ were short of around 20 runs at the end.

During batting, he held his nerves, took calculated risks and anchored his team home. It will be too early to compare him with the legacy left behind by Gautam Gambhir but he can prove to be the right man to keep things forward.

Another man to talk about from the match was Sunil Narine. Last year, the fans witnessed the rise of Sunil Narine as a power hitting batsman at the top of the order when he registered the then fastest 50 of the IPL.

Yesterday also he started from where he had left off. He started hitting boundaries from the very first ball and was ruthless against all the bowlers, especially Chahal and Sundar. In the process, he became the only batsman to score two fifties within 17 deliveries. Bowling an economical spell was always his forte, but with fearless shots in his armoury, he will be the key to the Knights in this IPL at the top of the order.