CHENNAI: Virat Kohli's 83 runs were not enough for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru as Kolkata Knight Riders became the first team to register an away win in this edition of the Indian Premier League.
With 183 runs to chase, Kolkata made a flying start as Phil Salt and Sunil Narine, playing his 500th T20 match, came all guns blazing right from the word go.
Salt smashed 18 runs from the opening over, while Narine followed it with 16 runs off Yash Dayal. The duo scored 85 runs in just six overs. Narine even came close to his first half-century of the season, but Mayank Dagar bowled the West Indies allrounder for 47. Vijaykumar Vyshak also got the wicket in his first over, but that did not stop the Kolkata juggernaut.
The wicket of Salt paired captain Shreyas Iyer with Venkatesh Iyer and the pair piled on runs to rub salt on the wound of Bengaluru fans. Venkatesh hit 20 runs off Alzarri Joseph's over to take Kolkata close to the target. He reached his 13th T20 fifty and perished soon, but not before taking his team close to the finish line. Shreyas clobbered Dagar for a six to seal the match with 19 balls and seven wickets in hand.
Earlier, Kolkata won the toss and asked Bengaluru to bat first at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Harshit Rana, the hero of Kolkata's previous match against Sunrisers Hyderabad gave his side a breakthrough when he sent Bengaluru's captain Faf du Plessis back for eight. However, that did not stop Kohli from going after Kolkata bowlers as he smashed Mitchell Starc for a six and a boundary the very next over.
Kohli found a reliable partner in Cameron Green as the pair added 65 runs for the second wicket. Looking at the building partnership, Shreyas Iyer gave the ball to Andre Russell, who repaid the faith shown by his captain with the wicket of Green for 33. Kohli remained an immovable object in all of this and brought up his second half-century of the season off 36 balls. Maxwell, who replaced Green at the crease rode some luck to score 28 off 19, as he was dropped twice by Kolkata fielders.
Rajat Patidar and Anuj Rawat did not last long for the home team, but Dinesh Kartik made the most of his time in the middle once again to score 20 off just eight balls to take Kolkata past 180.
Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bengaluru 182/6 in 20 overs (Kohli 83, Green 33; Russell 2/29) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 186/3 in 16.5 overs (Iyer 50, Narine 47).