RCB vs KKR | Eliminator: Sunil Narine was outstanding with both bat and ball, says Eoin Morgan

IPL 2021 | Brian Lara backs Virat Kohli, says would've asked him to continue as skipper of RCB

Former West Indies captain Brian Lara has put his weight behind Virat Kohli and said that if he would have been the owner of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, he would have asked the right-handed batsman to continue as the skipper of the franchise. The match against Kolkata Knight Riders was Kohli’s last game as the captain of RCB as he had earlier announced that he would step down from the post after this edition of the Indian Premier League. “If I was the franchise owner, I would ask Kohli to continue as the skipper. Virat Kohli the player and Virat Kohli the captain are two different people. Such a high profile player and he is still ‘young’ and is willing to play under somebody else. He wants to remain with RCB and I would have asked him to not give up the captaincy,” Lara told Cricket.com. “I would give him the players he wants and focus on the next few years. It’s tough and I am never going to point my finger at Kohli who gives everything on the field. They could have played better cricket and finished at either No. 1 or two. Things might have been different,” he added. RCB bowed out of the IPL 2021 after suffering a defeat in the eliminator against KKR on Monday. Batting first, the Bangalore team was restricted to 138/7 in 20 overs after Sunil Narine rattled the line with a four-wicket haul. Later, the Knight Riders who were under some pressure at one stage of the chase rode on an aggressive batting from Narine and eventually got over the line by 4 wickets and with two balls to spare. Narine struck a 15-ball 26 which included three maximums during the course. KKR will now play Delhi Capitals in Qualifier 2 in Sharjah on Wednesday.

Dan Christian, wife face abuse after RCB's elimination, he requests to 'leave her out of it'

Royal Challengers Bangalore player Dan Christian and his wife were subjected to abuse on social media after the side suffered a defeat against KKR in the eliminator in Sharjah. Christian had a disappointing outing on Monday after he only managed to score 9 runs in 8 deliveries and was then hit for 29 runs in 10 balls that included a 22-run over. “I didn’t have a great game tonight, but that’s sport,” he wrote. “However please leave her out of it.” The Bangalore franchise was restricted to 138/7 in 20 overs after Sunil Narine ripped through the RCB batting order and scalped a four-wicket haul during the course. The KKR side then started off the chase in a decent manner but lost some wickets at a quick succession to get reduced to 79/3 before Narine and Nitish Rana stitched a stand of 31 runs for the fourth wicket. Narine hammered Christian for three maximums in the 12th over to help his side take the upper hand. He was eventually undone by Mohammed Siraj for 26 off 15 deliveries. Later, the Knight Riders needed 7 off the last over and Kohli once again handed the ball to Christian who was hit for a boundary on the very first ball by Shakib. The Kolkata team eventually went over the line on the fourth ball of the final over to win the match by 4 wickets. They will now play Delhi Capitals in the second qualifier on Wednesday in Sharjah.

'Absolutely disgusting': Glenn Maxwell slams online trolls after RCB bow out of IPL 2021

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has slammed the online trolls for abusing him and the team after the side suffered a defeat in the eliminator against Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday. ” Some of the garbage that has been flowing on social media is absolutely disgusting! We are human beings who are giving our best each and every day. Try being a decent person maybe instead of spreading abuse…” The right-handed player also praised the “real fans” for showing support to the franchise during the campaign. “Thank you to the Real fans that shared love and appreciation for the players giving their all! Unfortunately, there are some horrible people out there that make social media a horrible place to be. It is unacceptable!!! Please don’t be like them!!!” RCB who batted first had a decent start to the proceedings as Devdutt Padikkal and captain Virat Kohli put up 49 runs on the board for the first wicket but Padikkal’s departure saw the team losing wickets at regular intervals in the middle overs. KKR spinner Sunil Narine thoroughly dominated the Bangalore batting line up after he picked up a four-wicket haul during the course as the side was restricted to 138/7 in 20 overs. Later, the Knight Riders too started off the chase pretty well but lost a few wickets in quick succession and were reduced to 79/3 when Narine walked in the middle and hammered Dan Christian for three maximums in the 12th over that certainly changed the course of the match. The left-hander scored a 15-ball 26 before he was cleaned up by Mohammed Siraj. KKR needed 7 off the last over and Christian was once again given the ball with Shakib and Eoin Morgan at the crease. Shakib struck a four off the first delivery of the over bringing down the equation to three required off five balls. Kolkata eventually completed the task pretty easily by 4 wickets and with a couple of balls to spare. The Eoin Morgan-led side will now play Delhi Capitals in the second qualifier on Wednesday in Sharjah.

What Experts Said as Sunil Narine draws curtains on Virat Kohli’s captaincy stint at Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore were blown away by a Sunil Narine storm at Sharjah on Monday, 11 October in the Eliminator of the Indian Premier League 2021. The Trinidadian starred both with bat and ball and brought a premature end to Virat Kohli’s stint as an RCB captain in the cash-rich league. Coming into the game, RCB were expected to pull away after having a brilliant season this time around, but on the night succumbed to the class of a modern day great, who simply was indomitable at the 22-yards in the UAE. Choosing to bat first on yet another sluggish T20 track, RCB were off to a flying start against the Knight Riders but failed to keep momentum once the powerplay ended. However, they could not hold onto the same and got choked out by some tremendous bowling from the trio of Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine. First, the KKR bowlers made it difficult to score runs outside the powerplay and then kept on picking wickets on a regular basis from the 10th over. This meant that RCB were stifled out, and they could only get to 139 runs despite closing the powerplay at 53 runs for the loss of just 1 wicket. RCB still had the tactical advantage over KKR, who have had a misfiring middle order throughout the season. And with the track slowing down considerably, it would seem that RCB were going to make a game out of this. However, things did not really go their way and a good opening stand between Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer provided Kolkata with a strong base off which they could go on to win this game. The young openers matched RCB neck to neck and put up 41 runs inside 6 overs. Gill was the first one to depart having been outfoxed by a sensational Harshal Patel slower ball. The middle overs did provide for a good combination with RCB bowlers doing a good job to stifle out the opponent. Just when it seemed like the scoreboard pressure was getting the better of KKR batters, RCB captain decided to bowl Australian Dan Christian in the 12th over and that is when all hell broke loose. Christian, a specialist cutter bowler, got the full treatment from newcomer Sunil Narine, with the Trinidadian depositing him for three sixes in his first three balls. At a point when KKR required 60 from 54 deliveries, that over opened the floodgates reducing the pressure to 38 off 48 balls. From here it was just an easy task to tick away runs and KKR did that with ease with the likes of Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan and Shakib al Hasan. They might not have looked assured while grabbing hold of each run, but they did enough to close the game with two balls remaining. The game marked the end of Kohli’s captaincy and his 9-year trophy drought at the RCB. It also made RCB the only team to have been knocked out of the Eliminator in back to back seasons, a record that Kohli could have done away with. Captains Comments Speaking at the end of the game, Kohli summarised the loss stating that the 15 run over (Dan Christian to Narine) deflated their changes in the game. he praised the KKR spinner and stated that their high quality bowling ended up being the difference on the night. "Their spinners dominated the game in the middle overs. They kept taking wickets there. We had a great start and probably should've tried to build on. It was more about quality bowling instead of poor batting. (Bowling effort of RCB) Outstanding. Been the hallmark this season. But tonight that big over in the middle deflated our chances in the middle. We fought till the last. But 15 runs left out there with the bat and a couple of big overs with the ball." Winning captain Eoin Morgan echoed the sentiments and heaped praises on his spinners stating that someone like Sunil Narine makes t look ridiculously easy when he is on song. "Narine makes it look very easy. He bowled outstandingly well. Throughout the innings, we continued to take wickets. Good start from the bowlers, and we were in control in the chase. A quite like it [having three spinners around[. It is a huge privilege when there are world-class spinners around. They continue to get better and better." He signed off by saying that for the KKR batting unit, it is all about adjusting to the conditions and they are confident that they will carry their learnings into the next game. Experts had a lot to observe in the game, and here is a compilation of the best tweets reflecting how things went about in Sharjah on Monday night. The Sharjah pitch has been talked about a lot since the restart of the IPL and it was no different tonight. It looked like it had been put together just about to make things easy for the team batting first before the true nature would be revealed. The pitch played out the same way and it would be dreadful if the next game were to be played in this strip again. Before all the mayhem took over, it is worth remembering that it was the New Zealand speedster Lockie Ferguson that started the RCB downfall. He picked up the wicket of Dedutt Padikkal and slowed down Virat Kohli who was looking in great touch. Ayaz Memon took notice of the same and pointed out what a belter of a season the speedster has had. Padikkal’s form since the restart of the IPL has been a worry for a section of the RCB fans. A Twitter user had some stats to back up the same and argued that Padikkal really needs to sort this critical deficiency in his batting out. Once Padikkal was removed, KKR built immense pressure on the RCB batting line-up using the magic of Varun Chakravarthy. This allowed Narine to bowl more attacking lines, keeping the length of the ball around 4-6 meters from the batsman. Not only did Narine manage to dismiss KS Bharat in his first over. He returned with consistent wickets in his second, third and fourth over as well, dousing the entire RCB firepower. Popular cricket account on Twitter, Johns pointed out that Varun Chakravarthy has had an impeccable record in this edition of the tournament and his tight lines have really borne fruit for other bowlers who have bowled around him. On the night, Sunil Narine also had another unique stat to his name, pointed out by statistician Kaustubh Gudipati. The game on the night came down to the final over where KKR needed 7 runs off the final 6 balls. It could have been 9, if only the ICC could look into a grey area of its ruling. Cricket Twitter has been vocal about this for a while now and once again an instance came to the fore that at the moment when an LBW shout was referred back to the third umpire for a DRS check, the runs (if taken) were no accounted for, despite the ball being counted. This meant that RCB were two runs short on the night, a margin might or might not have made difference at the end of the day. Returning to bat in the second innings when KKR found themselves in trouble, Sunil Narine once again dragged the team out of the hole, putting out yet another man of the match performance in the cash-rich league. He absolutely destroyed Dan Christian who was bowling his first over and took the game away from the Bangalore based franchise in a jiffy. All was not lost for the RCB though, as Harshal Patel became the joint highest wicket-taker in a single IPL season, equalling the record of Dwayne Bravo. This game marks the end of an era for RCB, who could be building a completely new core under a new captain in the next year's mega auction. Kaustubh put up something interesting on the night about Virat Kohli, something that truly sums up his journey as an RCB captain. With this win, KKR now are into the 2nd Qualifier of the Indian Premier League 2021 and are now going to face last year's finalists Delhi Capitals.