RCB began the competition strong by winning against KKR defense champions with seven wickets on Thursday. Vijay Mallya expressed his congratulations to his former team Royal Challengers Bangalore for their victory. The RCB team earned their victory against KKR and he congratulated them through his statement. Vijay Mallya has been a former owner of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru franchise.
The defending champions started their innings from the non-choice position with their seven wickets loss resulting in 174 runs during 20 overs while Rahane and Narine built a crucial first wicket partnership. During the second innings RCB reached 177 runs despite losing only three wickets and took home a victory with seven wickets left.
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Vijay Mallya Congratulates
The previous owner of RCB sent hearty congratulations to his team after their initial victory. According to a post by Vijay Mallya through X (formerly Twitter), RCB triumphed over KKR in a stunning fashion. The commentators greatly pleased him when they finally complimented RCB’s bowling performance. The batting order needs no additional explanation.
Congratulations to RCB for the emphatic win over KKR. Glad to hear the commentators finally say that RCB bowled well. The batting line up speaks for itself.
— Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 22, 2025
RCB Won Thanks to Salt and Kohli
Phil Salt and Virat Kohli started the game with strong batting performance. Salt and Kohli formed an opening partnership worth 95 runs. During his seventh IPL fifty he hit 56 runs from 25 balls before returning to the dugout. Varun Chakravarthy took the wicket of him during the match.
Impact player Devdutt Padikkal batted after Phil Salt and managed to score only 10 runs. The team’s victory became closer as captain Rajat Patidar hit 34 runs through 16 balls before he got dismissed. King Kohli reached his 56th IPL half-century by hitting 30 balls against his opponents. The team earned victory because of his outstanding condition during the match. Kohli reached 59 runs in 400 T20 matches excluding his dismissal and Liam Livingstone reached 15* runs in the match. During KKR’s match Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine successfully dismissed one batter each.
Rahane and Narine’s Effort Goes in Vain
The beginning of Kolkata cricket proved unstable. Hazlewood dismissed Quinton de Kock as the first delivery of the match. The batters achieved four runs in total. Sunil Narine along with Ajinkya Rahane provided the next major contribution to the batting performance. A furious 103-run stand between these two batsmen developed during their 55-ball partnership at the second wicket. Rahane achieved his 31st IPL fifty by hitting 56 runs from 25 delivered balls. After hitting 56 runs in 31 balls, Rahane faced dismissal even as Narine contributed 44 runs through his batting performance that included five boundaries and three massive hits over the boundary.
The innings of KKR started to crumble after Rahane and Sunil Narine put up a 103-run alliance for the second wicket until they faced wicket losses. The batsmen Angkrish Raghuvanshi (30) and Venkatesh Iyer (6) combined with Andre Russell (4) and Harshit Rana (5) to score runs for KKR during their batting performance. Ramandeep Singh and Spencer Johnson closed the inning with six and one runs remaining without being dismissed. In the match Krunal Pandya of RCB secured three wicket dismissals and Josh Hazlewood received two. Yash Dayal alongside Rasikh Salam and Suyash Sharma secured single wickets during the match.
