IPL 2021: "Venkatesh Iyer is vishesh" - Aakash Chopra on KKR's win against RCB

Aakash Chopra has termed Venkatesh Iyer a special player while reviewing the Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) emphatic win against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

KKR chased down a lowly 93-run target with nine wickets in hand and ten overs to spare in their IPL 2021 encounter against the Virat Kohli-led side on Monday. Iyer, who was making his debut, saw the team home with an unbeaten 41-run knock.

While talking about KKR's run chase in a video shared on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra lauded the performances of their two openers. He elaborated:

"Venkatesh Iyer is vishesh, he batted brilliantly, he was on fire. Shubman Gill had the license to thrill, he won my heart. His batting was beautiful and played in a different fashion, absolutely carefree. These conditions are suiting him as well as the ball is coming onto the bat nicely."

Iyer and Shubman Gill stitched together an opening wicket partnership of 82 runs for KKR. The latter was dismissed just two runs short of a well-deserved half-century.

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Aakash Chopra on the turning point of the KKR-RCB encounter

Andre Russell starred for KKR with the ball [P/C: iplt20.com]

Aakash Chopra picked the ninth over of the RCB innings bowled by Andre Russell as the turning point of the encounter. He observed:

"Andre Russell's over was the turning point of the match. They went into the match with just the five bowlers and this was the over in which he first dismissed KS Bharat with a short ball and after that, there was a strategic time out."

The former India cricketer pointed out that AB de Villiers' first-ball dismissal sealed the match in KKR's favor. Chopra explained:

"When you came at the other end of that, there AB de Villiers off the first delivery. It was a yorker-type of delivery that hit the legs and went on to hit the stumps. That was game, set and match because Bangalore play six proper batsmen and five full bowlers."

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Aakash Chopra reasoned that RCB do not have depth in their batting, unlike some of the other teams in the Indian Premier League. The former KKR player said:

Hasaranga and Jamieson can bat alright but they do not have multi-skilled players like Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya or Kieron Pollard, or the ones in Dhoni's team like Jadeja, Sam Curran and Bravo. They don't have players like that, let's be honest. Those two wickets in the one over just broke the back of their batting.

RCB failed to put up a fight after De Villiers' dismissal. They lost their last six wickets for just 40 runs.