Doubts need to be allayed nearly every day in the IPL, but Ajinkya Rahane made a good start to his captaincy stint at Kolkata Knight Riders, scoring 56 off 31, but KKR failed to capitalise on the breathtaking partnership between him and Sunil Narine. Put in, they were 107 for 2 in ten overs when Narine was dismissed for 44 off 26 but added only a further 67 in the second half. The death overs went at under a run a ball.
Krunal Pandya led the comeback of Royal Challengers Bengaluru with the wickets of Rahane, Rinku Singh and Venkatesh Iyer in an overall analysis of 4-0-29-3. Suyash Sharma, the former KKR player who got off to a poor start, made a big contribution in his final over with the wicket of Andre Russell with a wrong'un.
The drying up of the runs in the end was not too different to how Josh Hazlewood forced KKR into a slow start. The first three overs brought just nine runs and the wicket of Quinton de Kock. The new ball stopped a little and went a little up and down.
Once Rahane got started with a gift on the leg side, the next seven overs produced 98 runs. Rahane was brutal, putting a low price on his wicket and taking risks every time he could. Narine went from 1 off eight to score 43 off the next 18 balls he faced. It involved taking down his former team-mate, legspinner Suyash, whom he played like an offspinner.
Krunal, though, pulled things back once Narine got out to Rasikh Salam. He even tried a bouncer in a spell in which he kept changing the pace often. Two of his three wickets were bowled, which was a tribute to his accuracy.
Hazlewood and Yash Dayal closed out superbly for RCB to give them what looked like an easy target provided Narine and Varun Chakravarthy didn't cause much damage.