Live Report - IPL 2023 - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata

Jaiswal begins the 14th over batting on 94, with Royals needing three to win. A six will take him to a century. He shuffles across to a wide full-toss from Shardul Thakur, and swipes it to the backward square leg boundary for four. He won't mind finishing on 98 not out, because he's played an outstanding innings on a pitch that every other batter - including Samson in the early part of his innings - found it difficult to time the ball on.

Jaiswal and Samson put on an unbroken 121 in 69 balls, and Samson finishes 48 not out off 29 balls.

Royals win with 41 balls remaining, and lift their net run rate from an already healthy 0.388 to 0.633, which is second-best in the league behind Gujarat Titans' 0.951. It puts them in a good position should they get into an NRR battle.

They're now third on the table with 12 points from 12 games. Mumbai Indians have the same points total but they have a game in hand.

Three clean hits that comfortably clear the straight boundary off Anukul Roy, and Samson goes from 21 off 21 to 40 off 25. Twenty off that over, and Royals now need 23 from nine overs.

Samson looks to hit against the turn of a Narine carrom ball in the ninth over, and gets a top edge that skews high in the air, and the bowler calls for the catch, for which he backtracks a few steps while moving to his right. He settles nicely under it, only for the ball to plop out of his hands and onto the turf. It's possible that he may have been distracted by the keeper, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, running into his eyeline while going for the catch himself.

After nine overs, Royals are 101 for 1.

Two candidates in the last two overs, actually.

Sanju Samson played one off Varun Chakravarthy in the sixth over, a back-foot punch off his hip that simply raced away into the gap between midwicket and long-on.

Jaiswal responds with a stunner off Sunil Narine, stepping out, exposing all his stumps, meeting the ball outside leg stump, and lofting inside-out over the extra-cover boundary.

Royals are 88 for 1 in seven overs.

What's your favourite cricket videogame? Whatever it is, Jaiswal is playing it right now, in easy mode. Since that first-over onslaught, he's picked up a lucky four thanks to overthrows, hooked Harshit Rana for six, and smacked Shardul Thakur for three consecutive fours. It's as if the fielders on the 30-yard circle don't exist - it's all gaps for Jaiswal.

A single tucked off the hips takes Jaiswal to 50 off 13 balls. It's the fastest fifty in IPL history, beating the previous record, held jointly KL Rahul and Pat Cummins, by one ball.

Royals give away a cheap wicket and give KKR an opening. An incredible amount of hesitation between the openers after the ball rolls off Jos Buttler's thigh pad to the right of Andre Russell at backward point off Harshit Rana. Finally they decide to go for the single, and a direct hit from Russell runs Buttler out at the non-striker's end. He gives up completely by the end - no dive, nothing - and is yards short of his ground.

Nitish Rana brings himself on to bowl the first over, possibly to match his offspin against the left-handed Yashasvi Jaiswal, who has been in red-hot form all season but has usually begun his innings against pace.

Rana's move backfires in the most spectacular manner possible. He goes over the wicket, round the wicket, and tries everything, including a pause before one of his deliveries that seemed to last half a second. Nothing worked for him, as Jaiswal just went through or over the infield with absolute abandon. You don't need me to tell you this, but this guy is an extraordinary talent.

Twenty-six come off the over, the second-most runs in the first over of an IPL innings. The record is 27 by RCB against Mumbai Indians, with Chris Gayle shredding Abu Nechim Ahmed's bowling during Qualifier 2 in 2011.

Sandeep Sharma ends the innings with a seven-run over, finishing it with the wicket of Sunil Narine, caught at long-off.

Royals look like clear favourites at this point, but Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Suyash Sharma - who will probably come in as KKR's Impact sub - could still have a say on this slow Eden pitch.

Chahal keeps getting wickets. Frustrated Rinku Singh with a pair of dots in the 19th over, and then Rinku steps out and tries to launch Chahal over long-off. Picked the wrong'un, but there was no pace to work with off this slow pitch, and he picks out the fielder on the boundary.

Chahal gives up only three runs in the 19th over, and ends with figures of 4 for 25. KKR are 142 for 7.

Sampath Bandarupalli tells us that this is the seventh time Chahal has taken four or more wickets in an IPL game. Only Sunil Narine has done it more often.

For the eighth time in the last two IPL seasons, Chahal has struck multiple times in the same over.

Quick, front-of-the-hand legbreak that barely turns, and Shardul Thakur misses the sweep. Chahal is convinced he has his man, and immediately asks his captain to review the not-out on-field decision. Three reds, but the key bit is where the ball was projected to hit the stumps - right up at bail height but not so high up that it returned umpire's call. Often, Chahal turns his lack of height and lack of bounce into an advantage.

KKR are 129 for 6 in 16.4 overs.

And he gets him in trademark fashion. Tosses one up, angling across the left-handed Venkatesh and landing well wide of off stump. Gives him no pace to work with, asks him to reach for the ball to try and hit it, and all he manages to do is slice the ball up for a catch for Boult sprinting from point to where a short extra-cover might have been.

KKR are 127 for 5 in 16.1 overs.

He went through a real struggle early on, but he's found a bit of fluency on a pitch where the ball has stopped on the batters quite a lot. Brings up the fifty with, somewhat appropriately, an inside-edge onto the pad for a single, but he gets to celebrate properly when he gets back on strike, thumping Asif for a six over long-on.

KM Asif had got Andre Russell to duck under two bouncers in his previous over, and now he cramps him for room on the cut and gets him caught at backward point, one ball after overpitching and getting hit for a straight six.

KKR are 107 for 4 in 13.3 overs.

In the game that birthed that phrase, Rahul Tewatia turned things around from 8 off 19 balls. The circumstances of Venkatesh Iyer's innings are very different, but he's gone from 10 off 20 to 42 off 33, and is looking properly dangerous now after hitting Chahal for a six and two fours in his second over.

And speaking of Tewatia, you HAVE TO read this terrific interview of him, by the one and only Nagraj Gollapudi.

Yuzvendra Chahal was the joint-highest wicket-taker coming into this game (Self-plug: Read my piece on him here) and now he's all by himself on top of the pile, moving above Dwayne Bravo. No. 184 is an important wicket for Royals. Rana takes on the long leg-side boundary with the big sweep, and is caught at deep backward square leg.

This match is being played on a pitch that's near the edge of the square at Eden Gardens, so the square boundaries are asymmetric - 57m on one side and 70m on the other.

Ashwin has been bowling with the short boundary on the leg side for the two left-handers, and he'd managed to keep them quiet, conceding just eight runs in his first two overs, but the margin for error when you're looking to bowl wide of off stump is small.

Venkatesh, on 10 off 20 at that point, breaks out of his rut with a pair of sixes, a slog-sweep and a dancing loft over long-off. Rana joins in the fun later, and KKR take 18 runs in all from that 10th over to go to 76 for 2.

Venkatesh Iyer is looking far from fluent today, on a pitch that's looked a little two-paced. And Royals have sneaked in two quiet overs off offspin from R Ashwin and Joe Root - the sixth and seventh of KKR's innings - against the left-handed pair of Iyer and Nitish Rana. KKR are a little stuck at 44 for 2 in seven overs.

Rana has a terrific head-to-head record against offspin in general and Ashwin in particular, so it'll be interesting to see how this contest develops.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz was looking good, having hit a pair of sixes - over mid-off and extra-cover, respectively - off Sandeep Sharma in the fourth over. But when he tries to hit Boult down the ground in the next over, he doesn't quite get hold of his shot, and Sandeep catches him nicely at mid-off, running to his right and completing the effort with a dive.

KKR are 29 for 2 in 4.1 overs.

Jason Roy whips Trent Boult for six in the third over of the match - or so he thinks, until Shimron Hetmyer runs full-tilt to his right from deep square leg and plucks out a terrific jumping catch right on the edge of the boundary. Has to curve his run at the end to ensure the momentum doesn't take him over the rope.

KKR are 14 for 1 in 2.2 overs.

Royals have tended to bat first when they've won tosses, but they've chosen to chase tonight. Sanju Samson sums up the change in his inimitable way: "It's a very long tournament, our strengths and weaknesses keep changing, and we have to change according to that."

Trent Boult is back after missing Royals' last match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and he's in for Kuldip Yadav. This means there are four overseas players in Royals' starting XI, including Joe Root who made his debut against Sunrisers but didn't get to bat. Samson says Root will also offer him a useful spin option.

That option may be useful tonight, because there's a dry look to the Eden surface. KKR have made a change with that in mind, bringing in the left-arm-spin-bowling allrounder Anukul Roy for the seamer Vaibhav Arora.

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Jos Buttler, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Joe Root, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Trent Boult, 9 KM Asif, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal. Subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag, M Ashwin, Navdeep Saini, Donovan Ferreira.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 3 Venkatesh Iyer, 4 Nitish Rana (capt), 5 Andre Russell, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Shardul Thakur, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Anukul Roy, 10 Harshit Rana, 11 Varun Chakravarthy. Subs: Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, N Jagadeesan, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav.