On Thursday, the 56th game of IPL 2023 saw Rajasthan Royals take on Kolkata Knight Riders. Yuzvendra Chahal wrote the history of the game with his first over. Chahal scalped KKR captain Nitish Rana to surpass all other wicket-takers in the tournament’s history.
In his 143rd IPL game, the 32-year-old, who was tied with Dwayne Bravo on 183 IPL wickets, smashed the previous mark. Chahal made his league debut in 2013 and has since played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (2014–2021) and the Mumbai Indians (2011–2013).
In the 2022 season of the league, while representing the Royals, he recorded his best stats, taking 5-40 against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Chahal also recorded a hat trick in that contest.
The wicket ball
In the eleventh over of the innings, Chahal was called on to bowl. In his first over, he took the wicket of the KKR skipper Nitish Rana caught at the deep backward square boundary by Shimrom Hetmyer for his 184th IPL career wicket.
Earlier in the encounter on Sunday against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chahal took 4 wickets and allowed 29 runs to be scored in his 4 overs of bowling, good for a 7.20 economy rate. He shared the top wicket-taking spot with Dwayne Bravo after taking the vital wickets of Anmolpreet Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Heinrich Klaasen, and Aiden Markram. But in his 143rd encounter, Chahal outperformed everyone to take the top spot.
The Rajasthan Royals had five victories and six defeats through their first eleven games, placing them sixth in the standings. Kolkata Knight Riders, on the other hand, have played 11 games and now sit sixth in the standings with a record of 5 wins and 6 losses. Even though RR now leads KKR in terms of net run rate (NRR), if they keep winning, the position could quickly alter because a win for any club puts them in the top four.
Rajasthan Royals Playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson(w/c), Joe Root, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, KM Asif, Yuzvendra Chahal
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
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