Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 81 runs in the ninth match of IPL 2023 on Thursday (April 6). It was a comprehensive performance from KKR at home with Shardul Thakur and spinners shining for them. However, KKR batter Mandeep Singh didn't have a memorable outing and he bagged a golden duck. David Willey breached his defence with a brilliant outswinger to castle his stumps.
With this duck, Mandeep Singh became the player with most ducks in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL). He was earlier levelled with Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik with 14 ducks and was at the joint top spot. However, Mandeep owns this embarrassing record in IPL. Overall, in his IPL career, Mandeep has played 110 matches scoring 1694 runs at an average of 20.91 and a strike-rate of almost 124 with six fifties to his name.
Mandeep Singh had scored only two runs in the game against Punjab Kings as well. With a player like N Jagadeesan sitting waiting in the wings, it remains to be seen if he gets a chance in the next game. As far as ducks are concerned, Karthik has 14 of those to his name in 231 IPL matches while Rohit Sharma also has as many ducks in 228 outings. Interestingly, five players have 13 ducks in IPL and they are, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane and Ambati Rayudu.
As for the match, Mandeep's failure including the top-order collapse didn't hurt KKR much thanks to Shardul Thakur who smashed 68 runs off just 29 balls to propel the team to 204 runs in their 20 overs. RCB were never in the chase despite starting well as the spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy and debutant (impact player) Suyash Sharma strangled them. KKR skittled them for just 123 runs in the 18th over to win the game by 81 runs.
