Kolkata Knight Riders 161 for 6 (Rinku 53*, 29*, Jadeja 2-8, beat Rajasthan Royals 155 for 9 (Sooryavanshi 46, Jaiswal 39, Varun 3-14, Tyagi 3-22) by four wickets

Jofra Archer, though, set the tone of the defence with a first-ball wicket for the third match in a row before the spinners squeezed the life out of the KKR batting, but luck gave Rinku and KKR a second chance, which they grabbed.

Vaibhav Sooryavasnhi, Yashasvi Jaiswal play the conditions

This has to be the slowest Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal have played together. There was early recognition there that this pitch was not going to be easy for new batters. So they gave themselves some time and looked to prefer quantity of runs to the pace.

However, it didn’t stop Sooryavanshi from hitting Narine for a second-ball six after he introduced himself to Jasprit Bumrah with a first-ball six. It was only a 22-run final powerplay over from Cameron Green that turned 41 into 63.

Varun, Narine check in

Sooryavanshi has a habit of making a big statement early against big bowlers as seen in the cases of Bumrah and Narine. He looked to do the same with Varun second ball he faced, took the big leg side on, and holed out to deep midwicket. Had he connected with this wrong’un, he would have brought up his slowest IPL fifty. Let it sink in that said fifty would have taken just 28 balls.

KKR now burst through this small opening. Dhruv Jurel was stumped on the reverse sweep off Varun, Narine slowed the ball down to have Jaiswal caught at extra cover for 39 off 29. Riyan Parag looked to slog Varun and was bowled. In his last over, Narine brought out the carrom ball to first go past Donovan Ferreira and then create a return catch on the last ball of his assignment. The 10 middle overs had produced 5 for 61.

Tyagi turns in career-best figures

Now that the spin bowlers were done, RR were still hopeful of a decent score against an inexperienced pace attack. Shimron Hetmyer and Ravindra Jadeja’s presence meant Roy would still not be used. However, the left-hand batters executed poorly in the 19th over. Jadeja played an in-between pull to be caught at long leg. Hetmyer looked for a cute sweep on a rank full toss and got a leading edge to deep third. A third bonus wicket made it a personal best of 3 for 22 for Tyagi. RR had failed to double their first partnership and needed to do something they had done only three times in their history: successfully defend 155 or below in a full T20 game.

RR start off sensationally

Unlike the KKR quicks, though, RR fast bowlers found some movement and dismissed the openers for ducks. Jurel pulled off a piece of work that deserves to go into the stumping hall of fame with a blind reverse flick while diving full length to the leg side to send back Green.

Full report to follow…