Kolkata Knight Riders all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer has performed brilliantly in IPL 2023. Venkatesh once considered an alternative to Hardik Pandya, is not bowling this season, but has done exceptionally well with the bat. He is the only Indian to score a century this season and the highest score (104 runs) also came with his own bat.


Venkatesh also played brilliantly in the match between Kolkata and RCB. He could not do much with the bat and scored an inning of 31 runs in 26 balls, but based on his fielding, he overturned the match. Venkatesh took a brilliant catch from Virat Kohli and contributed significantly to the team's victory. After the match, Venkatesh was described as the real impact player on the Twitter handle of Kolkata Knight Riders.

Kolkata had set a target of 201 runs in front of Bangalore. Chasing this, Virat Kohli was batting brilliantly. At the other end, four wickets of RCB had fallen for 113 runs, but Virat Kohli was playing at one end with a half-century. In such a situation, Iyer's catch sent Virat to the pavilion. Kolkata's victory was decided from here.
What happened in the match?
Batting first, Kolkata Knight Riders scored a mammoth score of 200 runs for five wickets. Jesse Roy hit a stormy half-century. At the same time, captain Nitish Rana played an inning of 48 runs in 21 balls. Venkatesh Iyer was given two lives from RCB and he also scored 31 runs. Chasing the target, the Bangalore team was never in rhythm. Virat Kohli raised hopes by building two good partnerships, but Venkatesh Iyer ended RCB's hopes by catching his brilliant catch. Kohli scored 54 runs.

For Kolkata, the spin duo of Varun Chakraborty and Suyash Sharma took five wickets together. Russell also took two wickets to restrict RCB to 179/8 and hand Kolkata a 21-run win. With this, the Kolkata team also broke the streak of four consecutive defeats.

(PC amarujala)