IPL 2018, KKR vs RCB Highlights: Captain Dinesh Karthik powers Kolkata to 4 wicket victory against Bangalore

After a cracking start to the carnival of cricket, Kolkata Knight Riders will host Royal Challenegrs Bangalore in the third game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Practice of both teams were hampered due to rain, before the game. Last time KKR hosted RCB at the Eden Gardens, RCB were bundled at 49, creating a record for lowest team total in the history of IPL.

Knight Riders have advantage over RCB in head to head record with 11 wins in comparison to 9 wins for the latter. Last season KKR won both the fixtures against Bangalore.

Here are the highlights:

# That was a cracking game of cricket, we will be back tomorrow with Sunrisers Hyderabad locking horns with Rajasthan Royals. So come back tomorrow for some IPL action. 

# Sunil Narine, Man of the Match: It's good to get the ball rolling in the first game. The support staff and everyone giving me a chance to open the batting. Whatever role the teams wants to play, I'm happy to do it. It's a good cricket wicket, whatever you do on the field, it's gonna benefit you.

# Virat Kohli: I think we were 15 short with the bat. I played too many dot balls and couldn't get any momentum going. Me and AB getting out in 2 balls to a part-timer was a game-changing event. Sunil took the game away from us with the way he batted. If you are giving 13 an over in the first overs on that sort of a wicket, it's very difficult to comeback. It's difficult for the spinners to bowl on this pitch, the fast bowlers get some purchase and you can score runs as well. It has become a really good cricket wicket over the last couple of years. We made a pretty good game out of it, to drag it till the 19th over and take those wickets was a big positive.

# 18.5 Overs: Four! Dinesh Karthik and KKR start off their campaign in style, a morale-boosting 4-wicket win over RCB.

# 18.1 Overs: DROPPED! Vinay Kumar is dropped there. WOW! VK shakes his head in disbelief

# 17.5 Overs: FOUR! DK with a smashing shot. KKR 168/6

# 17.4 Overs: OUT! Russel has to go back to the hut.  A Russell c de Villiers b Woakes 15(11) KKR 164/6

# Russel finishes the over with a four and a six! What a comeback he is having. KKR 162/5

# 16.1 Overs: SIX! Flat as it can get. Russel powers Umesh Yadav over deep mid wicket. KKR 153/5

# KKR need 30 runs off 24 balls

# After 15.5 Overs, Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh has departed and its Russel and DK at the crease now!

# 10.5 Overs: FOUR! Classy shot by DK. KKR 106/3

# 9.1 Overs: FOUR! Straight bat and  Rana lifted it and one bounce and crosses the boundary rope. KKR 97/3

# STAT ATTACK: Robin Uthappa has been dismissed by the short ball on 23 occasions. 11 of those have come since the start of 2015

# Skipper Dinesh Karthik is at the crease now

# 7.3 Overs: OUT! Uthappa is out, good catch by McCullum. Uthappa c Brendon McCullum b U Yadav 13(12) KKR 83/3

# Those boundaries have electrified Eden Gardens, the crowd is back on its feet.

# 6.4 Overs: FOUR! Drives it for four! KKR 79/2 

# 6.3 Overs: SIX! Monsterous, wow hit. Nitish Rana hit is clean KKR 75/2

# 5.2 Overs: OUT! Narine departs, Umesh Yadav comes back to haunt his former team.  Narine b U Yadav 50(19) KKR 65/2

# 4.5 Overs: SIX! Narine is taking everything out of the boundary line. KKR 64/1

# 4.4 Overs: SIX! Mighty Narine destroying Washington Sundar here. KKR 58/1

# 4.3 Overs: FOUR! Steps out and drives it for boundary. KKR 50/1

# 3.6 Overs: SIX! Narine doing the job there. Clean hit over mid wicket boundary. KKR 46/1

# 3.4 Overs: FOUR! Eden Garden's fast outfield comes into play. KKR 40/1

# 3.3 Overs: FOUR! Slashed Woakes for a boundary. KKR 36/1

# 3.2 Overs: SIX! Narine oh Narine, what a hit. KKR 32/1

# 2.6 Overs: SIX! Uthappa welcomes himself. KKR 26/1

# Robin Uthappa walks in now.

# 1.5 Overs: OUT! Lynn walks back and a big blow to KKR. ABD runs back to take a great catch. Chris Lynn c de Villiers b Woakes 5(8) KKR 16/1

# 1.4 Overs: FOUR! Lynn with the lemon cut! KKR 16/0

# Narine and Lynn at the crease and KKR are 12/0 after 1 over.

# KKR start their innings with a bang, SMASH a four and six!

# KKR need 177 to win

# 19.6 Overs: OUT! Terrific catch by Russel there and Woakes departs. Woakes c A Russell b Vinay Kumar 5(5)  RCB 176/7

# 19.5 Overs: OUT! Mandeep walks back. Went for a biggie there but the ball went straight to deep backward point. Brilliant innings though. Mandeep c Kuldeep Yadav b Vinay Kumar 37(18) RCB 176/6

# 19.3 Overs: SIX! Oh boy! poor bowling by Vinay Kumar. RCB 176/5

# 19.2 Overs: FOUR! Sweet sweep by Mandeep. RCB 170/5

# 19.1 Overs: SIX! Vinay Kumar comes back only for his second over of the game and a big hit by Mandeep. RCB 166/5

# 18.3 Overs: FOUR! Woakes opens the face of the bat and directs it beautifully to deep point boundary. RCB 158/5

# 18.1 Overs: OUT! Johnson strikes. Sarfaraz Khan c Rinku Singh b Johnson 6(10) RCB 154/5

# 17.4 Overs: FOUR! Mandeep does it again. RCB 152/4

# 17.1 Overs: FOUR! Mandeep handsomely pulls a short Narine delivery for a boundary. RCB 146/4

# Words of a former Indian player:

Looked like a very risky move but it has paid off and like how. Nitish Rana has got AB De villiers and Kohli in successive balls. This is something worth telling his grandchildren #KKRvRCB

— Mohammad Kaif (@MohammadKaif) April 8, 2018

# STAT ATTACK: Nitish Rana joins an exclusive list of just 14 bowlers who've dismissed both Kohli and De Villiers in the same match. Ashish Nehra is the only man to do it twice.

# Mandeep Singh and Sarfaraz Khan are the new duo at the crease

# 14.3 Overs: Rana misses his hat-trick

# 14.3 Overs: OUT! Kohli departs!! Part timer Nitish Rana is doing the job for KKR. Kohli b Nitish Rana 31(33) RCB 127/4

# 14.2 Overs: OUT! AB de Villiers is gone. de Villiers c Johnson b Nitish Rana 44(23) RCB 127/3

# 14.1 Overs: Nitish Rana comes to bowl and SIX! Take a bow ABD RCB 127/2

# After 14 overs RCB are 121/2

# 12.4 Overs: SIX! Chawla could not have done anything there. Skipper Kohli steps out and BOOM! RCB 114/2

# 11.3 Overs: SIX! Unbelieavable batting there. ABD at its best. RCB 106/2

# 11.2 Overs: FOUR! AB at its best, Johnson bowl the short one and punished RCB 100/2

# 11.1 Overs: ABD survives after a successful review! Nothing on the sneako meter there. RCB 96/2

# 10.5 Overs: FOUR! Kohli joines the party. RCB 94/2

# 10.3 Overs: SIX! Monster by ABD and this time Narine is the victim. RCB 89/3

# 9.6 Overs: SIX again! ABD at it again. Kuldeep Yadav with a lose delivery and rightly punished. RCB 82/2

# 9.5 Overs: SIX! AB de Villiers with a wow hit. RCB 76/2

# 8.2 Overs: OUT! Baz departs, completely failed to pick Narine and its clean bowled. Brendon McCullum b Narine 43(27) RCB 63/2

# 6.4 Overs: FOUR! McCullum steps out and manages it to time it for a boundary at deep extra cover. RCB 62/1

# 6.2 Overs: FOUR! What a hit McCullum! Mitchell Johnson would not have expected that slash. RCB 58/1 

# 5.6 Overs: SIX! McCullum steps out and over the long on! HUGE this one! RCB 51/1

# STAT ATTACK: Brendon McCullum loves to charge early on in his innings. Only Tamim Iqbal and Sunil Narine come down the track more often than McCulum in the first over of T20 matches, the Kiwi doing so 10% of the time. 

# 4.1 Overs: FOUR! Picked the wrong un to perfection and lifted it over the mid off fielder. RCB 43/1

# 4.1 Overs: WIDE and FOUR! McCullum went for the sweep but Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps completely missed it. RCB 39/1

# 3.5 Overs: FOUR! McCullum dismisses a short Piyush Chawla delivery for a boundary. You can't bowl him that. RCB 33/1

#Stat Attack: McCullum (when on 8*) became the 2nd player to cross 9000 runs in T20s after - you guessed it - Christopher Henry Gayle.

# 1.4 Overs: OUT! de Kock departs. de Kock c Vinay Kumar b Chawla 4(4) RCB 18/1

# 0.4 Overs: SIX! Short by Vinay Kumar and McCullum pulls it high for a maximum. RCB 10/0

# 0.1 Overs: FOUR! What a start, McCullum flicks it to square leg boundary. RCB 4/0

# Quinton de Kock and Brendon McCullum walks in to open the innings, Vinay Kumar with the new red cherry! Its gonna be a cracker.

#STAT ATTACK: Out of the 20 matches between the two sides, RCB have never won against KKR while batting first in IPL history!

# Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Mitchell Johnson, Kuldeep Yadav

# Virat Kohli - It's a pretty good wicket and we are looking forward to put some runs on the board. Our four overseas are ABD, McCullum, de Kock and Woakes. For the first time we have a good balance with bat and ball both. This is probably the most balanced RCB side ever

# Dinesh Karthik - We are going to bowl first. Looks a good wicket, so we will look to chase. Should be a good contest. Everything's been good so far touch wood things go well. This is one aspect of captaincy I have to learn. The four overseas are Lynn, Narine, Russell and Johnson.

# KKR win the toss and elect to field first

Match Timing: 20:00 IST, 14:30 GMT

Match Venue: Eden Gardens, Kolkata, India

Squad:

KKR: Robin Uthappa (wk), Dinesh Karthik (c), Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Shubman Gill, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Tom Curran, Ishank Jaggi, and Kamlesh Nagarkoti.

RCB: Quinton de Kock (wk), Virat Kohli (c), Manan Vohra, AB de Villiers, Mandeep Singh, Colin de Grandhomme, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Brendon McCullum, Parthiv Patel, Moeen Ali, Kulwant Khejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Corey Anderson, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, and Tim Southee.