Kolkata Knight Riders thrash Royal Challengers by 81 runs for their first win.

Thakur produced a career best T20 innings to power KKR to a superb 204/7 batting first, before picking up a wicket with the ball for an impressive all-round showing, as RCB slumped to 123 all out for a heavy defeat.

KKR spinners Varun Chakravarthy, 4-15, and Sunil Narine, 2020, were the stars with the ball, starting the early carnage in the RCB chase, before Suyash Sharma, 3-30, capitalised at the end of the innings by picking up some late wickets.

The RCB chase got off to a good start as openers Virat Kohli, 21 off 18 balls (3×4), and Faf du Plessis, 23 off 12 (2×4; 2×6) shared in a 44-run stand for the first wicket off 28 balls.

But once Narine got a ball to spin back in sharply and clean bowl Kohli in the fifth over, it started a disastrous collapse that saw them lose all 10 of their wickets for 79 runs.

Chakravarthy had Du Plessis edging onto his own stumps, before he bowled Glenn Maxwell (5) and Harshal Patel for a duck, as RCB crashed to 54/4.

Shahbaz Ahmed (1) then reverse swept Narine straight to the man in the deep and all of a sudden RCB were in massive strife on 61/5 after nine overs.

Michael Bracewell (19) and Dinesh Karthik (9) tried to stem the tide with a 22-run sixth-wicket stand, but once Thakur was introduced into the attack he struck in his first over, having Bracewell caught by Nitish Rana.

This sparked a second collapse as four wickets fell for 13 runs, with Sharma picking up three of them as RCB tumbled to 96/9.

David Willey (20no) and Akash Deep, 17 off eight balls (2×4; 1×6), managed to share 27 for the last wicket, before Chakravarthy deservedly ended proceedings with a good catch off his own bowling.

MAIDEN T20 HALF CENTURY FOR THAKUR

In the first innings Thakur slammed his way to a first ever T20 half century, finishing with 68 off just 29 balls, as he hammered nine fours and three sixes in a fantastic innings, to rescue KKR from a tricky position.

Thakur arrived at the crease in the 12th over of the innings with KKR in trouble on 89/5, and brilliantly counter-attacked to get his side to an above par total.

He shared in an important 103-run sixth-wicket stand with Rinku Singh, 46 off 33 balls (2×4; 3×6), who initially played the perfect supporting role for Thakur before freeing up himself towards the end of the innings.

Both batters fell over the final seven balls, but by then the damage had been done.

At the start of play RCB won the toss and chose to field, with KKR getting off to a decent start thanks to opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 57 off 44 balls (6×4; 3×6), doing the early heavy lifting.

Having reached 26/0 at the end of the third over, the fourth bowled by Willey saw a double breakthrough, as he jagged one back in to hit the top of Venkatesh Iyer’s (3) middle stump, followed by one seaming away to clip the top of Mandeep Singh’s off stump off successive deliveries.

By the end of the powerplay KKR had moved to 47/2, but the first ball after the powerplay saw the back of Rana (1) after he gloved a ball from Bracewell to keeper Karthik.

Singh then joined Gurbaz at the crease and they steadied things with a 42-run stand with Gurbaz dominating it, while reaching his half century in style with a flat swept six off Bracewell.

The 12th over then brought another double strike as Karn Sharma had Gurbaz caught by Deep at short third man, followed by Andre Russell in his hundredth IPL appearance, out for a first ball duck caught by Kholi at long off.

However this just brought in Thakur and the fireworks began as he blitzed the ball to all parts of the field to get KKR to a strong end score.

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: Mandeep Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Nitish Rana (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy

ROYAL CHALLENGER’S BANGALORE: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Michael Bracewell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, David Willey, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Karn Sharma.