The stage was set for Match 31 of IPL 2021 on Monday with Kolkata Knight Riders clashing with Royal Challengers Bangalore in Abu Dhabi. Virat Kohli’s side were the favourites coming into the match considering their form in the first half of the season. However, it’s been four months and seems like quite a lot has changed in this period.

Eoin Morgan’s side, who had won only 2 matches out of 7 in the first half of the season, needed a perfect team performance to turn around their season. But little did many know that they will absolutely outplay RCB in their first match of the UAE leg.

KKR thrash RCB in a one-sided encounter

Kolkata Knight Riders dominated the contest right from the beginning when they dismissed Virat Kohli in the second over itself. The star-studded batting line-up of RCB had no answers to Varun Chakravarthy and Andre Russell as wickets fell like a pack of cards. A dramatic collapse meant that they were bowled out on 92 and the match was done and dusted by then.

However, KKR openers added to their misery as the duo of Shubman Gill (48 off 34) and Venkatesh Iyer (41* off 27) went absolutely berserk and smashed the RCB bowlers all over the park. They chased down the target in 10 overs only, with 9 wickets in hand.

As a result of this dominating performance, not only did RCB lost 2 points but their net run-rate took a huge hit as it fell down to -0.71. On the other hand, KKR climbed up to 5th position in the points table, increasing their NRR drastically to +0.11.

Fans troll RCB for their return to old form

The netizens were quick to troll Virat Kohli’s side for suffering such a heavy defeat at the start of the crucial second phase of IPL 2021. Some fans claimed that they were back in their vintage old form where they start losing important matches in the tournament. There were some extremely funny reactions on RCB’s net run rate taking a huge hit as KKR chased down the target with 10 overs remaining.

Check out the best reactions:

https://twitter.com/icon__07/status/1439982957209391105

https://twitter.com/Rahul_Jois/status/1439990077489176579