Bengaluru: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) conjured up a spin magic after Jason Roy's sterling fifty as they snapped their four-match losing run with a 21-win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, here on Wednesday.
The English opener led the show with a 29-ball 56 as the KKR batters fired in unison to notch up 200/5 after RCB captain Virat Kohli opted to bowl at their home den.
But the spin duo of Varun Chakravarthy (3/24) and rookie Suyash Sharma (2/30) created a top-order mayhem, before Andre Russell (2/29) broke Kohli's resistance to restrict RCB to 179/8.
Kohli struck a 34-ball 54 and kept their hopes up in the 201-run chase after Faf du Plessis (17) Glenn Maxwell (5) fell cheaply.
But all hell broke loose when Venkatesh Iyer took a game game-changing catch at deep midwicket boundary to dismiss Kohli, off Russell.
He dived to his left and rolled over but held the ball firmly as Kohli walked back in disbelief.
With 86 needed from 48 balls, it was left for Dinesh Karthik (22) to keep up their chase but Chakravarthy had the last laugh when he had the veteran RCB keeper-batter en route to his three-for, and it was all over for RCB.
KKR thus did a double on RCB, having beaten them in their season-opener by 81 runs.
The loss again proved RCB's over-reliance on their Big Three -- Kohli, du Plessis and Maxwell.
Cruising at 30/0, RCB's flying start was halted by the spin duo of Sharma and Chakravarthy who gave KKR a perfect start, sharing three wickets in between them inside the Powerplay (58/3).
RCB's regular skipper du Plessis, who sat out only to be subbed as an 'Impact Player', looked at his ominous best when he smashed Umesh Yadav on both the sides of the wicket.
Kohli too was looking in full flow as the RCB opening duo feasted on the KKR pacers to start with.
With their trump card spinner Sunil Narine going wicketless in four matches, Rana banked fell back on their latest spin package Suyash.
It was a move that did the trick as the leggie grabbed the prized scalp of du Plessis with a wrong one and in his next over he trapped Shahbaz Ahmed (2).
Maxwell then got out to Chakravarthy for a second time in as many matches this season which left the RCB's top-order in a disarray.
Earlier, Roy set the tempo up front when he smashed five sixes and four boundaries as he and N Jagadeesan (27; 29b) added 83 runs from 56 balls.
Sri Lankan leg-spinner Hasaranga dismissed Jagadeesan and Roy.
But Rana then ensured that they don't lose the momentum as he made full use of his two reprieves -- on five and 19 -- to race to his 21-ball 48 (3x4, 4x6).
KKR's new-found hero Rinku Singh (18 not out; 10b) then took charge as he smashed two fours and one six.
David Wiese smacked two sixes to make an unbeaten 12.
