16th match
Royal Challengers Bangalore 185 for 3 beat Rising Pune Supergiants 172 for 8 by 13 runs
Prior to this match, 14 of 15 games in IPL 2016 had been won by the team chasing. Royal Challengers Bangalore bucked the trend again by defending 185 against Rising Pune Supergiants and securing a 13-run victory. They had earlier defended 227 against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Virat Kohli played an un-Virat Kohli innings of 80 and struggled for timing, particularly in the middle overs. AB de Villiers, though, was his usual self, swatting and even reverse-swatting his way to 83 off 46. The pair produced their third 100-plus stand in four matches, adding 155 runs to take the side to 185, a total that Supergiants captain MS Dhoni described as "par-plus". Thisara Perera blitzed 34 off 13 to give Royal Challengers a late scare, after claiming three wickets with the ball, but Shane Watson dismissed the Sri Lanka allrounder and R Ashwin in the space of three balls to snuff out the chase.
Supergiants lost Faf du Plessis in the second over when he stepped out and chipped a catch to mid-off. A ball later, they suffered a bigger jolt. Kevin Pietersen set off for a quick single and seemed to have hurt his calf while turning back. Moments later, he limped off the field. In the next over, Steven Smith slipped near the middle of the pitch and was run out for 4. Ajinkya Rahane went on to make 60 off 46 balls, but his knock was offset by Dhoni's patchy 41 off 38 balls. This meant that Supergiants limped through a large part of their chase before Perera gave it a leg-up.
When Perera came out to bat at 109 for 3, the asking rate was close to 15 an over. He survived a close lbw shout off his first ball and then mowed South African chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi over midwicket for a six. He hit full tilt when he bashed four successive boundaries off Harshal Patel in the 18th over. Perera's blows reduced the equation from 50 off 18 balls to 25 off 12, but Watson and Kane Richardson combined to seal the deal for their side.
Royal Challengers' batting was once again led by Kohli and de Villiers, after KL Rahul skied a catch to third man in the fourth over. De Villiers marked his arrival with a crunching cut off left-arm spinner Ankit Sharma that pierced the gap between cover and cover point. Kohli, too, began positively, thanks to a steady supply of leg-stump balls from Ishant Sharma. Rajat Bhatia's assortment of cutters and Ankit's darters, however, squeezed Royal Challengers. R Ashwin was also economical, though he did not complete his quota again. He could have dismissed Kohli on 50 had Ankit hung on to a catch at mid-off.
De Villiers tucked into M Ashwin, hitting the rookie legspinner for two sixes in his first over. He followed it with swept and reverse-swept fours in the bowler's second over. The South Africa batsman continued to showcase his gallery of shots even as Kohli was tied down. Kohli's frustration was evident when he whacked himself on the pad with the bat after mistiming a slower ball from Bhatia to deep midwicket and then jammed his bat onto the helmet when he holed out in the last over of the innings. A ball later, De Villiers was undone by Perera's legcutter. Kohli had played out 17 of Royal Challengers' 28 dots, which incidentally was the joint-third least in an IPL innings.
17th match
Delhi Daredevils 164/4 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians 154/7 (20/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils won by 10 runs
Delhi Daredevils defended 164 against Mumbai Indians and sealed a hat-trick of wins for the first time since IPL 2012. Legspinners Amit Mishra and Imran Tahir strangled Mumbai in the middle overs before seamers Zaheer Khan and Chris Morris fired inch-perfect yorkers to seal Daredevils' tense 10-run victory.
Mumbai still had a chance when the equation was 42 off 18 with Kieron Pollard on 8 and Rohit Sharma on 50. Morris, coming back for his third spell, conceded ten runs in the 18th over and Zaheer followed it with the wicket of Pollard to push Daredevils ahead. Morris was left to defend 21 off the last over. Hardik Pandya slapped the first ball to long-off and Rohit gave Mumbai hope by clouting the second ball for a six. A ball later, Rohit collided with Hardik Pandya near the middle of the pitch and was run out. Mumbai also had to bear the anxiety of Rohit being helped off the field by the physio. Morris trapped Harbhajan Singh lbw the next ball and consigned Mumbai to their fourth loss in six matches.
Mumbai, however, had begun brightly in their chase. Rohit and Ambati Rayudu pierced the packed off-side field with regularity, after Parthiv Patel was run out for 1 in the second over. Rohit and Rayudu built impetus with seven fours in 12 balls and raced past fifty by the sixth over.
Rayudu could have been dismissed on 16 had JP Duminy hung onto a sharp catch at slip. He added nine runs before Mishra bowled him with a googly in his second over to break the 53-run partnership. Krunal Pandya, who was promoted to No.4, mixed finesse with power and hit 36 off 17 balls before Zaheer caught him short with a direct hit.
The wicket applied the brakes on Mumbai's innings. In his third over, Mishra's googly made a reappearance and pinned Jos Buttler lbw for 2. Mishra celebrated the wicket by setting off on a celebratory run, like his partner Imran Tahir who floated googlies of his own as well. They tightened the squeeze and ended with combined figures of 8-0-53-2. Rohit then brought up his third fifty this season with a crunching drive by the 17th over, but his collision with Hardik killed off the chase.
Earlier, Hardik was involved in a similar nasty collision when he tore to his left from deep backward square leg and bumped his face into Buttler who was running to his right from deep midwicket.
Daredevils met an early stumbling block when Quinton de Kock, coming off a century against Royal Challengers Bangalore, miscued a leg-side slog to backward point for 9 in the second over off fast bowler Mitchell McClenaghan. Shreyas Iyer showed promise but he fell to a leg-side slog of his own. When Karun Nair sent a top edge to fine leg the following over, Daredevils were reduced to 54 for 3 in eight overs.
JP Duminy then joined Sanju Samson and revived Daredevils' innings. At one point 26 off 27 balls, Samson broke free with a huge six off Harbhajan Singh over long-on. A ball later he swept the offspinner for a four between deep square leg and fine leg. He went on to bring up his fifth half-century against Mumbai off 40 balls.
Samson holed out in the 17th over but Duminy smashed 22 runs off Jasprit Bumrah in 11 balls. The highlight of Duminy's unbeaten 49 off 31 balls was an over-the-shoulder scoop for a six.
18th match
Kings XI Punjab 143/6 (20/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad 146/5 (17.5/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 5 wickets (with 13 balls remaining)
Mustafizur Rahman and David Warner produced clinical performances to pave the way for Sunrisers Hyderabad's thumping five-wicket win against Kings XI Punjab in Hyderabad. Mustafizur executed his offcutters and yorkers again to return figures of 2 for 9 - the most economical spell of the season - as Kings XI were restricted to 143. Warner then blasted his third consecutive fifty, off just 23 balls, to effectively finish the game. Sunrisers' third win of the season pushed them to third spot on the points table, while Kings XI were left languishing at the bottom with just one win in five games.
The tone for Kings XI was set by an outswinger from Bhuvneshwar Kumar that took M Vijay's outside edge in the third over. Manan Vohra then stabilised the innings with a flurry of boundaries, including an exquisitely-timed drive over cover for six. Just when it looked like the batsmen were wrestling back the momentum, Vohra pushed one to cover and set off for a non-existent single. Shikhar Dhawan hit the stumps and Vohra made his crease at the batsman's end, but his bat bounced up after a full-length dive.
Moises Henriques dented Kings XI further with a double-strike, removing David Miller and Glenn Maxwell in the space of five balls, the third time they have been dismissed in the same over this season. Marsh looked set for his second successive fifty before he was undone by an offcutter from Mustafizur.
However, Nikhil Naik, on IPL debut, and Axar Patel gave Kings XI a chance with a 50-run sixth-wicket stand. Axar was particularly dominant in the arc between long-on and deep midwicket - all his three sixes were hit in that area. Mustafizur, though, ensured Kings XI did not get much more with another frugal spell. Fifty-four runs were scored off the last seven overs, and Mustafizur conceded just nine off three overs in that period. He brought out all his variations - offcutters, yorkers and slower bouncers - to befuddle the batsmen.
In the chase, Warner and Dhawan resumed from where they left off against Gujarat Lions. Dhawan pierced the cover region with two crisp drives for four in the first two overs, before Warner took over.
Warner laid into Sandeep Sharma's second over - the third of the innings - with two lofted drives over long-off. He hit six more boundaries in the remainder of the Powerplay as Sunrisers plundered 65.
In the 10th over, Warner holed out to long-on for a 31-ball 59, an innings that featured seven fours and three sixes. Aditya Tare, promoted to No. 3, was run-out of his first ball and Kings XI believed again.
However, Shikhar Dhawan and Morgan snuffed out any hope Kings XI had. Shikhar Dhawan dropped anchor after Warner's dismissal, but top-edged a length delivery from Rishi Dhawan to the keeper. Morgan's 20-ball 25 took Sunrisers within five of a comfortable win before he picked out midwicket with a jabbed pull. Eventually, Sunrisers cruised to the target with 13 balls to spare to keep their winning streak alive.
19th match
RCB 180/2 (20/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions 182/4 (19.3/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions won by 6 wickets (with 3 balls remaining)
Virat Kohli is a calculating batsman. It shows in the way he plays pure cricketing shots and maximises their impact by picking gaps. He was furious at himself after scoring 80 in Royal Challengers Bangalore's victory two days ago because he thought he should have used 10 balls fewer. A man so meticulous insisted he never thought he would score a hundred today in their match against Gujarat Lions. But he did; his first ever in T20 cricket, achieved by hitting a wide yorker for four off the final ball of the innings. Thereafter, he wouldn't have thought his team would lose. But they did, after putting 180 on the board - a total Kohli thought was 25 runs above par.
There are not many batsmen who can go toe-to-toe with the Royal Challengers captain. He averages 110 and strikes at 141 in Twenty20s this year. So Lions had to work together, and work as perfectly as possible. The Rajkot pitch was slow and strokeplay wasn't particularly easy. With the new ball, you can always bank on runs though. Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith, who replaced Dale Steyn - belted 72 runs in the Powerplay - a record for this season - to provide a fine start to the chase.
Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik built a sensible half-century stand - using the long boundaries at the SCA stadium to scamper twos as often as possible to keep the asking rate in check. Karthik, who was 28 off 26 when that partnership was broken in the 16th over, accelerated to 50 off 39 balls and was unbeaten when the winning runs were struck with three balls to spare.
Royal Challengers had the chance to remove Karthik in the 18th over, Kane Richardson deceived the him with a slower ball but was unable to hold on to the return catch. An equation of 26 off 16 balls could have been taxing on a new batsman. As such, the set batsman Karthk kept finding the gaps, a fresh Ravindra Jadeja made sure the twos continued coming and the chasing team won for a 16th time in 19 IPL matches this year.
After opting to bat, Royal Challengers lost Shane Watson early when he skied an offcutter from Dhawal Kulkarni to Jadeja running in from sweeper cover. But Kohli and de Villiers put up their fifth fifty-plus stand in six innings to regain the advantage.
Kohli was sublime on the drive, and de Villiers was content to watch from the other end. The duo put on 51 off 36, but the show came to a premature end when de Villiers chipped an innocuous delivery from legspinner Pravin Tambe to short cover.
The tempo of the innings began to falter. KL Rahul struggled for timing and his captain had sprained his ankle while turning for a second run. But Kohli has said he trains so that fitness issues do not affect his performance. At the World T20, after a phenomenal innings to beat Australia in the league stage he said, "I like to play for when I'm tired, I should be able to run as fast as when I'm on zero." Today after an innings of 100 not out off only 63 balls, he said "that was where fitness counts," said Kohli at the innings break, "The other muscles took over."
The last four overs yielded 65 runs for Royal Challengers, as Rahul recovered from a slow start to post 51 off 35 balls, with three sixes. Kohli belted Bravo for six, four and four off the last three legal deliveries of the innings to register his maiden T20 hundred and lift Royal Challengers to 180.
Smith responded with 32 off 21, including three fours and two sixes, McCullum pillaged 25 runs off the sixth over and Lions had dragged the required rate down to 7.78. South African chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi did well to keep Royal Challengers' hopes up with his 4-0-21-1, but the his team-mates conceded 158 runs in 16 overs.
20th match
Rising Pune Supergiants 160/5 (20/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders 162/8 (19.3/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders won by 2 wickets (with 3 balls remaining)
Before Sunday, Kolkata Knight Riders had won three games out of three while bowling first. On Sunday, they chased again, won again, and went top of the table in a tournament where chasing teams had won 17 out of 20 matches. Chasing 161, they were coasting at 111 for 3 before they slumped dramatically, losing five wickets in 30 balls, and only sealed victory when Umesh Yadav struck a meaty straight six with five runs needed off the last four balls.
Knight Riders' slump began in the 15th over, when Rajat Bhatia's stump-to-stump line, and Yusuf Pathan's across-the-line response, ended a 51-run stand for the fourth wicket with Suryakumar Yadav. That partnership, coming on the back of Suryakumar's stands of 31 and 29 with Gautam Gambhir and Shakib Al Hasan, had taken Knight Riders to a position where they needed 50 off the last 34 balls, with six wickets in hand.
But when M Ashwin struck in the next over, defeating Suryakumar with a ripping googly, and particularly when Andre Russell - who struck two big sixes off Ankit Sharma in the 17th over - holed out to a slower ball from Thisara Perera, a one-sided contest turned into a thriller. Knight Riders kept in touch with the required rate with a boundary whenever they needed it, but they also kept losing wickets. In the end, they had Nos. 9 and 10 at the crease when Umesh slogged Perera high over long-on.
In his post-match interview, MS Dhoni said he was happy with Supergiants' total of 160, and thought his spinners had given the match away by bowling too full on a slow pitch offering plenty of turn. There were six sixes hit off the Supergiants spinners, and all six came off balls that were in the slot for lofted hits.
It was a definite contrast to the way the Knight Riders spinners had operated, largely bowling just short of a good length, and extracting generous turn that made it hard to hit down the ground or against the break.
Ajinkya Rahane came into the match with two half-centuries in his last four innings, and demonstrated his silky form with an effortless flicked six off Morne Morkel in the third over of the Supergiants innings, and two fours off the next six balls he faced.
The introduction of Shakib Al Hasan, in the fourth over, revealed the extent of turn available, as he straightened one from wide of the crease to clip Faf du Plessis' off stump. With Shakib bowling three overs by the end of the eighth over, and Gambhir introducing Piyush Chawla early as well, Rahane and Steven Smith spent a fair amount of time negotiating balls turning away from them, and sharply at that. They were busy in this period, working the ball into gaps and running frantically, and had put on 56 in 8.2 overs when Smith was needlessly run out, backing up too far down the pitch.
Dhoni sent in the left-handed Perera and Albie Morkel ahead of him, and they both made cameos, hitting three sixes between them to lift the run rate alongside Rahane, who hit a couple of sixes as well, off Chawla and Umesh in the 16th and 17th over.
Rahane's dismissal at the start of the 18th over brought in Dhoni, and the Supergiants captain punished a wayward Morne Morkel in the final over, pulling him for six and four either side of a whipped boundary manufactured off a leg-stump yorker. Supergiants had taken 17 off the last over, and 70 off the last six.
Albie, playing his first match for Supergiants, showed he had a fair idea of how to bowl on this pitch when he struck with his first ball, a slower offcutter that clanged into Robin Uthappa's front pad in front of off stump. But his brother Morne's tendency to bowl short also rubbed off on him, and Gambhir and Suryakumar hit him for three fours over the remainder of an eventful first over.
When Albie overcompensated and fed Suryakumar two overpitched balls in the third over, Knight Riders were racing along at 29 for 1. But they lost Gambhir against the run of play, when he turned for a non-existent second run, and Supergiants were back in the contest.
With M Ashwin and Ankit forming an inexperienced two-thirds of Supergiants' spin attack, Dhoni needed R Ashwin to be at his best. But it wasn't his day. Introduced in the fourth over, he struggled to find the right line, length and pace to bowl on this pitch. He bowled three leg-side wides that spun from outside off stump, fed two balls in Suryakumar's six-hitting slot, went around the wicket to try and change his luck, and did all of this in the space of two overs.
Two overs was all he would bowl. Dhoni ignored opportunities to use him outside the Powerplay, perhaps unwilling to use him against a succession of right-handed Knight Riders batsmen, but it showed, not for the first time in recent months, a lack of trust in a proven, experienced spinner.
21st match
Mumbai Indians 189/6 (20/20 ov)
Kings XI Punjab 164/7 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians won by 25 runs
Before this match, Parthiv Patel had managed only 73 runs in his last five innings and Mumbai Indians had only two wins in six matches. Martin Guptill, who hit 237 in the 2015 World Cup and a 19-ball half-century in a T20 against Sri Lanka in January, and former India Under-19 winning captain Unmukt Chand were breathing down Parthiv's neck. The wicketkeeper-batsman picked out deep backward square leg off a no-ball on 15. He flapped the next ball - a free hit - to David Miller at midwicket. And he survived a close stumping chance on 32. He was then dropped at mid-off on 66. He prospered to make his highest IPL score - 81 off 58 balls - and led Mumbai to a 25-run victory against Kings XI Punjab in Mohali.
He found an ideal foil in Ambati Rayudu, who had a slice of luck of his own when he was dropped on 33. Rayudu pushed on to score 65 off 37 balls in a 137-run partnership, the highest for Mumbai this season, which charged them to 189 for 6.
Kings XI still had a chance when Miller sent Kieron Pollard soaring over long-on to reduce the equation to 58 off 25 balls. Glenn Maxwell was set by then, having scored his first half-century in India after 34 T20 innings. Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell McClenaghan, though, nailed pinpoint yorkers to seal Mumbai's third win in their seventh match. This meant that Mumbai became the third team, after Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils, to defend a total this IPL.
Mumbai were helped by late reverse swing and smart field placement. Even when Bumrah and McClenaghan marginally missed their yorkers, Rohit had Harbhajan Singh at a finer-than-normal fine leg to intercept the paddles and scoops.
Mumbai, however, had a shaky start. Sandeep Sharma found inswing right away and had Rohit Sharma nicking behind for a duck. Johnson, although wayward, tucked Parthiv and Rayudu up with short balls as Mumbai limped to 25 for 1 in five overs. The next five then went for 52.
It was the sixth over that marked a stark shift in momentum. Parthiv was caught off a no-ball and then punished Johnson with back-to-back whipped fours. He then took Mohit Sharma for a brace of stylish off-driven fours in the 13th over. Rayudu, meanwhile, welcomed Maxwell with a four and laid into Axar Patel, crunching 29 off 12 balls, before he fell, attempting a hat-trick of sixes in the 16th over. At innings break, Rayudu said he had Parthiv had planned to launch the slog early in the innings, instead of holding back.
Parthiv cut loose after bringing up his half-century off 41 balls. Jos Buttler clubbed the second ball he faced over long-on for six before unfurling his bag of scoops and reverse scoops. His cameo ended when Mohit Sharma bowled him with a back-of-the-hand slower ball in the 18th over. Five balls later, Parthiv miscued Johnson to point. Mohit also dismissed Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya with his variety in the final over of Mumbai's innings, but Kings XI would be rooted to the bottom of the table with their fifth defeat in six matches.
M Vijay showed early promise in the chase with three flicked boundaries, but was duped by Tim Southee's slower ball in the third over for 19 off 13 balls. Manan Vohra was also undone by a slower ball, this time off Bumrah, as Kings XI were pinned down to 32 for 2 by the fifth over.
Harbhajan and Krunal Pandya hardly offered anything in the slot for the batsmen to get under. Shaun Marsh was forced to work the ball into the gaps and was largely subdued in an 89-run stand with Maxwell. Just as he looked to up the ante, he holed out, failing to clear the longer part of the ground. By then the asking rate had shot close to 14 an over.
Maxwell played a calculated innings. He, himself, worked the ball into the gaps before finding his hitting range with successive fours off Pollard in the 11th over. He drilled and swatted to his way to a fifty but Bumrah and McClenaghan mixed it up nicely in the end overs. Bumrah sniped off Maxwell and Nikhil Naik in the 18th over. McClenaghan then cleaned up Johnson in the 19th over to see off the hosts.
"There was some pressure when Maxwell and Marsh were playing, because they are quality batsmen," Rohith said in his post-match interview. "But we had five bowlers the way Bumrah and Mitch (McClenaghan) bowled at the end was fantastic."
Kings XI, who also had to bear the news of Miller sustaining an injury, have five days to recover, before they head to Rajkot.
22nd match
Sunrisers Hyderabad 118/8 (20/20 ov)
Rising Pune Supergiants 94/3 (11/20 ov)
Rising Pune Supergiants won by 34 runs (D/L method)
After rain delayed the start for an hour, Rising Pune Supergiants' seam bowlers, led by Ashok Dinda, used the fresh Hyderabad surface and generated appreciable lateral movement to reduce Sunrisers Hyderabad to 32 for 5, setting up a crucial 34-run D/L win. In the chase, Faf du Plessis and Steven Smith consolidated the early loss of Ajinkya Rahane, before finding the boundary in every over of the Powerplay to ease Supergiants to their second victory of the season.
With 25 required to win, rain returned to bring a premature end to the game. It was the 18th win by a chasing side in 22 games this season.
Supergiants' bowlers swung the ball throughout the Powerplay. In the first over, Dinda, making his debut for Supergiants, removed the in-form David Warner with a wide delivery that was cut straight to backward point, eliciting a Christiano Ronaldo-like celebration from the fast bowler. Thereafter, Sunrisers were continually tested against the moving ball. Dinda and Mitchell Marsh, in particular, used the swing on offer to increase the pressure on the batsmen with tight overs.
The pressure of an unproductive Powerplay resulted in loose shots from Aditya Tare and Eoin Morgan, and Sunrisers were soon left to rebuild from 27 for 3. The situation worsened when Deepak Hooda gloved a reverse sweep to MS Dhoni. In the next over, Moises Henriques was strangled down leg and Sunrisers slumped to 32 for 5.
R Ashwin was conceded 14 in four straight overs through the middle. Supergiants did not concede a boundary from the sixth over till the 14th. Shikhar Dhawan and Naman Ojha picked off the singles on offer, but the pressure built steadily. Dhawan carried on to post his second fifty of the season, after getting a reprieve in the 15th over, when he was dropped by Ajinkya Rahane at long-off.
That Bhuvneshwar Kumar contributed with an eight-ball 21 meant Sunrisers were able to plunder 37 off the last three overs to finish with 118. Dinda ended with 3 for 23, his second-best figures in the IPL.
Bhuvneshwar gave Sunrisers some hope in the chase with a wicket-maiden in the first over, after having Rahane caught at backward point. However, Smith and du Plessis capitalised on loose bowling, hitting 11 boundaries between them in the next seven overs to all but finish the game. Mustafizur Rahman's variations, too, were taken apart by Smith's wristy flicks.
Du Plessis's fluent knock ended when he edged behind for 30. MS Dhoni, promoted himself to No. 4, but nailed a cut straight to backward point off Ashish Nehra just as the drizzle got too heavy. The players scurried off immediately with Supergiants at 94 for 3, comfortably ahead of the D/L par score of 60.
23rd match
Gujarat Lions 172/6 (20/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils 171/5 (20/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions won by 1 run
It was IPL in a nutshell. Brendon McCullum's destructive start helped Gujarat Lions record the fastest hundred - in 54 balls - of the season. A helpless collapse then killed the prospect of a one-sided game. A total of 172 with dew gathering at Feroz Shah Kotla was not beyond Delhi Daredevils. However, the home fans would have despaired when they slipped to 16 for 3. The game, of course, was not done playing with their emotions.
Out walked the million dollar man Chris Morris with 116 needed off 56, and walloped the third fastest fifty in IPL history, off 17 balls. When the match finished, he was unbeaten on 82 off 32 balls, but there was no smile on his face. Those were on the faces of Praveen Kumar and Dwayne Bravo, who gave away only 16 off the final two overs to pull off a one-run win for Lions.
Morris had come in at No. 6 and launched his second ball into the second tier of the stands behind long-off. Very few of his eight sixes and four fours were mistimed, but a lot of them came as a result of his being able to get under the ball. Praveen did not allow that to happen in the penultimate over of the chase, when he conceded only four to leave Daredevils needing 14 off the final six balls. Bravo, bowling from around the stumps, then hit the blockhole repeatedly to deny Morris' sublime innings the status of match-winning.
Suresh Raina gave his frontline spinners - Ravindra Jadeja and Pravin Tambe - only one over each and they cost a combined 31 runs. Bowling with the wet ball, they stood very little chance against Morris now armed with a crowd that was bellowing his name. His reach helped, his balance at the crease pristine and his clarity of thought handling the required rate that was above 12 was downright chilling.
Morris' first two sixes dragged the equation down from 101 off 48 to 85 off 42. Two against Tambe in the 15th over brought it to 57 off 30. A hat-trick of them in the 17th over bowled by Dwayne Smith sealed his fifty and left Daredevils needing 29 off 18. The passage of play till then was similar to the Lions innings - they raced to 110 without loss in 10 overs.
McCullum smashed Lions' fastest fifty, and Smith usurped him a few minutes later. This batting line-up had beaten perhaps the best one in the IPL on Saturday, when a Virat Kohli century had not been enough. Daredevils were looking at a target of 220, as a best-case scenario. But Morris did what Royal Challengers Bangalore's bowlers couldn't on Sunday; he had set plans and executed them very well. He dismissed McCullum and Raina in the 12th over; Lions were short-circuited and could only manage 55 runs in the remaining 48 balls.
Morris knew McCullum thrived on fast bowling, so he produced an offcutter that dipped under the bat swing and broke the stumps. He targeted Raina's body and had leg gully in place to take the catch. That gave the Daredevils spinners some freedom.
Imran Tahir added to his reputation of being one of the best bowlers in T20 cricket with a spell of 3 for 24, the hallmark of which was his ability to vary the pace and time the googlies and flippers that surprised the batsmen. Where his slow-bowling partners Amit Mishra and Shahbaz Nadeem bowled flat in the hopes of containing the batsmen, Tahir backed his skill to confound them. He had Smith lbw with a ball that skidded through off the pitch and removed Ishan Kishan and Dinesh Karthik off successive balls in the 17th over.
Much like Tahir, Dhawal Kulkarni relied on his strength - swing - to topple Sanju Samson, an in-form Quinton de Kock and Karun Nair to lift Lions in the chase but his 3 for 19 wouldn't have mattered much until his new-ball partner Praveen bowled an excellent final over to strangle Morris and finish with 4-0-13-0.
24th match
Kolkata Knight Riders 174/5 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians 178/4 (18/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians won by 6 wickets (with 12 balls remaining)
A dropped catch and a missed stumping left Mumbai Indians coach Ricky Ponting a bit sheepish as he admitted a few things hadn't gone to plan after they chose to bowl in the final match at Wankhede stadium for IPL 2016. The batting, though, couldn't have gone smoother. Rohit Sharma struck his fourth fifty in four chases this season and nothing the Kolkata Knight Riders could do made a difference.
There were six bowling options that Gautam Gambhir could use - all of them had played international cricket - to defend a total of 174 which he had helped build with his 29th half-century in the IPL. But his team relies on the spinners to effect a slowdown and drive the batsman into panicking. That was not possible with dew gathering on the outfield, making it quicker, and helping the ball come onto the bat better.
Its impact was clear as Rohit and Ambati Rayudu struck 10 boundaries in 34 balls and as Kieron Pollard muscled his way to an unbeaten 17-ball fifty and sealed victory with his sixth six of the night.
Gambhir, though, did not hide behind any excuses. He said the batsmen should have scored 15 more runs and added that as international cricketers they should know how to deal with dew. It was a case of adapting to a tough situation - as he himself did while batting. A sweet timer of the ball on the off side, bowlers often try to tuck him up to keep him quiet. So Gambhir opened up his stance which helped him clear the front foot quicker, allowing a smoother bat swing when he hit through midwicket. Twenty-two of his 59 runs came in that region, including a six and two fours.
Mumbai could have dismissed him on 8 but Mitchell McClenaghan fluffed a simple caught-and-bowled chance in the second over. The other Knight Riders opener Robin Uthappa was given a life on 35 when Parthiv Patel missed a run-out. Chris Lynn, who was brought to lengthen the batting in place of fast bowler Morne Morkel, was dropped on 2 by Tim Southee, and when Yusuf Pathan offered a chance at redemption one ball later, Southee dropped the catch and conceded a boundary.
No such mistakes plagued Mumbai's batting, with Rohit's timing and Pollard's brute force finishing the game off with 12 balls to spare.
The only thing that went right for the Knight Riders was their catching. A fine catch from Yusuf got rid of Parthiv in the second over of the chase. Suryakumar Yadav plucked out a stunner at the long-on boundary to bring Rayudu down. And Lynn's presence of mind on the long-off boundary to dismiss a dangerous Jos Buttler had left Mumbai needing 69 off 42 balls.
In walked Pollard - playing his 100th IPL match - who had seemed a bit slow in the field perhaps because of the knee injury that kept him out of the World T20. But with bat in hand, he looked very assured. He struck his third ball for four, pelted three sixes in the 16th over - curiously bowled by R Sathish - and bashed three more in the 18th over, bowled by Jaydev Unadkat, to wrap things up. "Pollard is peaking at the right time," Rohit said at the presentation. The West Indian had come into the match with only 71 runs in his last six innings.
While Pollard's contribution is a good sign for Mumbai going forward, tonight's chase was built on Rohit's unbeaten 68. He began with a rip-roaring six over square leg and pushed on with a pristine cover drive. None of his shots taxed him for effort and yet the ball simply flew away. His composure was also noteworthy and seeing off tight spells from Shakib Al Hasan (1 for 30) and Sunil Narine went a long way in handing Knight Riders their second loss of the season.
25th match
Rising Pune Supergiants 195/3 (20/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions 196/7 (20/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions won by 3 wickets (with 0 balls remaining)
This was a thriller that should have never come down to the last ball. But a combination of nerves, poor shot selection from Gujarat Lions and outstanding fielding by Rising Pune Supergiants kept the game alive till the end. On a night when Steven Smith scored a century and Dwayne Smith made a bruising 37-ball 63, it was birthday boy James Faulkner who sealed Lions' chase of 196 with three wickets in hand. This meant that Lions consolidated their position at the top of the standings with their sixth win in seven matches.
Steven Smith's surgical precision, fast hands, quick feet and strong wrists fetched him a maiden T20 century that would have had a match-winning status on most nights. But it was put to shade by Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith, who added a 93-run opening partnership in 8.1 overs. The blazing start allowed Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik the luxury of playing themselves in and taking the game deep.
When Karthik holed out to Rahane at deep midwicket, Lions needed 30 off 22. But just when it looked like they had closed the game out, came two further blows of Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja, immediately after an outstanding four-run over from rookie legspinner M Ashwin. The equation was down to20 off the last two overs.
The pressure was back on Lions, although briefly, with Raina picking away a Dinda half-tracker to the fine-leg boundary to leave Lions needing nine off the final over, bowled by Thisara Perera. Into the home stretch by then, Faulkner held his shape and swung the first ball to the square-leg boundary. The second ball was a wide outside off and the third was driven to cover for a single. Raina then fell the next ball with Lions needing 3 off 3. Ishan Kishan's run out by Saurabh Tiwary at mid-off made it three from two, before Faulkner delivered the body blow.
For the first three overs of the chase, Dwayne Smith enjoyed the McCullum show from the best seat in the house. Then he punished Dinda and R Ashwin and caught up with McCullum as Lions smashed 72 in the Powerplay. By then, Dwayne Smith was on overdrive, swinging and connecting most balls in his hitting arc between deep midwicket and long-on.
Having been at the receiving end of the openers' fury against pace and spin, MS Dhoni introduced Rajat Bhatia in the seventh over in a bid to apply the squeeze. It worked when McCullum top-edged a slog to short fine leg in the ninth over. Dwayne Smith was unfazed, though, throwing R Ashwin off rhythm with back-to-back fours in the following over. Having swung his way to nine fours and a six, there was unmistakable authority over his batting, until he inside-edged Perera's yorker onto the stumps. By then, the equation was down to 81 off 55 balls, which Raina and Karthik brought down further by milking the singles with the odd boundary.
There was hardly a sign of this being a cruise for the Lions when they were on the field. Their bowlers repeatedly missed their mark as Steven Smith and Ajinkya Rahane established the credentials of the surface in an enterprising 111-run stand for the second wicket.
Tiwary's run-out in the third over was hardly a deterrent as Steven Smith hit his stride, easing the pressure off Rahane with a flurry of boundaries up front. For a while, Lions overdid the short stuff into his body, only to get picked away off his hip. When the ball was full, Steven Smith unleashed powerful drives. Along the way, he also received a slice of luck on 41 when he was bowled off a no-ball by IPL debutant Shivil Kaushik. The release was achieved immediately, with Steven Smith lifting the chinaman bowler's next ball for six.
Then, after Rahane was brilliantly run out by Dwayne Bravo at the non-strikers end, Lions pushed their lengths too full, only to see Steven Smith and Dhoni lay into the bowling. Dhoni was particularly severe on Jadeja, clubbing him for two successive sixes in the 17th over. Supergiants nearly reached 200, but the first six overs of the chase gave Lions a headstart to open up a four-point lead at the top of the table.
26th match
Delhi Daredevils 186/8 (20/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders 159 (18.3/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils won by 27 runs
Half-centuries from Karun Nair and Sam Billings steered Delhi Daredevils past a poor start and a 11-ball 34 from Carlos Brathwaite provided the late thrust that lifted them to 186. Daredevils defended it with regular strikes that destabilised a Kolkata Knight Riders line-up of considerable depth, eventually bowling them out with nine balls still left to play. Robin Uthappa held the chase together with a 52-ball 72, but wickets kept falling around him - Zaheer Khan did the early damage, while Brathwaite punctured Knight Riders' momentum with three wickets in the middle overs.
It was still anyone's game even with Knight Riders five down and requiring two runs a ball, with Andre Russell joining Uthappa at the crease. They were keeping up with the asking rate, adding 44 at quicker than 12-and-a-half an over, when Amit Mishra made the game's decisive strike, somehow plucking a fierce straight hit from Russell in his follow-through with his eyes off the ball. It left Knight Riders needing 36 off the last three overs, and their lower order crumbled, their last five wickets falling in the space of 10 balls.
Knight Riders sent Daredevils in and removed both their openers in the first over. Shreyas Iyer played across the line to Andre Russell and fell for his third duck of the season, and Quinton de Kock top-edged a pull, looking to fetch a shoulder-high ball from outside off stump.
The loss of Sanju Samson in the fifth over meant Daredevils ended the Powerplay 37 for 3. Nair, though, was already on his way, having capitalised on leg-side-ish bowling from the Knight Riders seamers to pick up three fours with flicks and glances. He reverse-swept the first ball of the post-Powerplay period, delivered by Sunil Narine, for another four.
With Billings busy at the other end - he did not face a single dot between the fourth and 27th balls of his innings - Daredevils' run rate never flagged despite the early wickets. Billings biffed Piyush Chawla for two fours in a 15-run 12th over, and Nair swept and reverse-swept Narine for three fours in the 15th, moving past 50 in the process.
Both batsmen hit a six each in the next two overs, and though Nair and Morris fell in the space of three balls, there was no let-up, as Brathwaite glanced and dabbed the first two balls he faced to the boundary behind the wicket. With Billings and Brathwaite hitting four more sixes between the 18th and 20th overs, Daredevils picked up a total of 66 runs from their last five.
Daredevils had picked four seamers, and the reason became clear as the match wore on, with bounce and a bit of seam movement available to the new-ball bowlers. The bounce accounted for Gautam Gambhir, who closed his bat face too early while looking to work Zaheer into the leg side, and Piyush Chawla - possibly promoted simply for his left-handedness - was lbw playing a similar shot. Knight Riders ended the Powerplay 43 for 2.
Knight Riders remained in sight of their target when Brathwaite conceded 22 in a 10th over full of no-balls, but he dismissed Yusuf Pathan and Suryakumar Yadav either side of it to leave them walking a wickets-in-hand tightrope. When R Sathish picked out deep square leg in Brathwaite's final over, it came down to Uthappa and Russell.
The dismissals at the other end had contributed to Uthappa cutting off most of the risk from his batting. After four fours in his first 24 balls, most of which was during the Powerplay, he went 19 balls without a boundary. But he changed gear as soon as Russell joined him, going after Mishra's legspin.
Uthappa had hit Mishra for a six and a four in the 15th over, and with Russell also at the crease, it seemed a gamble when Zaheer tossed the ball to the legspinner to bowl the 17th, with Knight Riders needing 51 from 24. Uthappa and Russell took 15 off the first five balls of the over, and Russell almost smacked Mishra flush on the face off the last ball. Somehow, his hands shot up, plucked the ball out of the air, and changed the course of the game.
27th match
Sunrisers Hyderabad 194/5 (20/20 ov)
RCB 179/6 (20/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 15 runs
David Warner showed his duck against Rising Pune Supergiants was just a one-off blip in his otherwise red-hot form. Much like he had clobbered the Royal Challengers Bangalore attack with a 25-ball 58 in their first face-off this season, Warner hammered the visitors' attack to all parts of the ground during his 50-ball 92, his fifth fifty in seven matches, to lead Sunrisers Hyderabad to the top half of the table with a 15-run win.
Warner used his force, timing and gigantic bat to pick boundaries at regular intervals. He found an able partner in Kane Williamson, who scored 50 off 38, for a second-wicket stand of 124 runs in 12.1 overs that charged them to 194 for 5, their highest total of the season. The Royal Challengers chase showed promising signs initially and the hosts helped them further by dropping AB de Villiers twice, but Sunrisers' quicks and the mounting pressure of a rising asking rate was too much for the visitors.
Virat Kohli opted to bowl and Warner changed gears after Shikhar Dhawan handed a return catch to Kane Richardson in the fourth over. Harshal Patel was introduced into the attack in the sixth over and Warner showcased his power-hitting, collecting 16 runs to launch Sunrisers' run rate into an orbit from which Royal Challengers could not pull it back.
Williamson nudged the ball around to give Warner the strike in his slow start. The Royal Challengers spinners, Parvez Rasool and Tabraiz Shamsi, applied a speed breaker briefly by not conceding a boundary off 11 successive deliveries. Warner, however, went deep into the crease to tackle Rasool's flat deliveries and Shamsi's wrong'uns.
But once the quicks came back, Williamson took charge with a variety of fours in the next two overs - a flick, an edge and a whip - which pushed the run rate close to 8.50. Warner targeted Richardson in the 15th over with powerful and well-placed shots that lifted the scoring rate past 9. The Sunrisers captain holed out to long-off in the next over, and Williamson and Naman Ojha fell within four balls, but Moises Henriques' 14-ball 31 with three sixes propelled Sunrisers close to 200.
Without Chris Gayle, who was not picked despite being available, Royal Challengers' chase was dependent largely on Kohli and de Villiers. KL Rahul kick-started the innings with flowing boundaries on the off side using sheer timing and placement. However, Mustafizur Rahman handed them the first blow in his first over when Kohli crunched him straight to backward point, for 14.
Sunrisers could have derailed the chase further when de Villiers, on 3, skied a short ball to fine leg, where Ashish Nehra made a mess of an easy catch. Rahul continued to cream boundaries on the off side and brought up his fifty off 26 balls. Sunrisers, though, hit back when Moises Henriques produced a thin outside edge from Rahul's bat and Watson's run-out for 2 in the bowler's next over left them on 90 for 3.
In between the two dismissals, another de Villiers catch was put down: the batsman pinned the ball to extra cover but Deepak Hooda could not hold on. In the 14th over it looked like de Villiers was going to make Sunrisers pay for the reprieves. He clubbed two short balls from Henriques for mighty sixes, but the threat did not last long as he handed his third catch of the night off Sran's bowling. Williamson, at long-on, leapt forward to get his fingers under it. At that stage, Royal Challengers needed 66 from 32 and with Mustafizur's two overs still in hand, the task was too stiff.
Sachin Baby tried to keep them in the hunt with fearless attempts that fetched him three fours and a six in a 16-ball 27. Kedar Jadhav targeted the leg side for two sixes but those weren't enough to lift Royal Challengers, who are placed second from the bottom in the points table.
28th match
Kings XI Punjab 154 (19.5/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions 131/9 (20/20 ov)
Kings XI Punjab won by 23 runs
Axar Patel took four wickets in five balls, including the first hat-trick of the season, to pave the way for Kings XI Punjab's 23-run win against table-toppers Gujarat Lions in Rajkot. Axar's burst reduced Lions to 57 for 6 in their chase of 155, setting up Kings XI's second win of the season.
After posting 154, Kings XI got the ideal start to the second innings with the early wickets of Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina, both missing straight balls from Mohit Sharma. After a slow Powerplay, Axar was brought on in the seventh over. Dwayne Smith muscled a lofted drive to long-off. Two balls later, Axar got one to skid through and Dinesh Karthik's inside edge clattered into leg stump. Another slider from Axar and Dwayne Bravo, too, chopped on. Axar, reintroduced in the 11th over, got his first ball to dart past Ravindra Jadeja's outside edge. It seemed like bat hit pad, but the umpire raised his finger as Axar completed the 14th IPL hat-trick.
Thereafter, Lions were always behind the climbing asking rate. Newly-appointed captain M Vijay rotated his bowlers continuously. Ishan Kishan and James Faulkner took Lions closer, but too much damage had been done.
At the halfway stage, it did not seem like Kings XI had enough. Despite a flying start from Vijay and Marcus Stoinis, Kings XI collapsed to 154. Vijay's sweetly-timed drives and flicks off Lions's seamers - Dhawal Kulkarni and Praveen Kumar - meant Kings XI scored 34 off the first four overs. Vijay contributed 31 of those. Marcus Stoinis, then, cut loose as the openers plundered 59 off the Powerplay, their highest this season.
In the seventh over, Stoinis ran past a slider from Jadeja, sparking another Kings XI collapse. Chinaman bowler Shivil Kaushik's whippy action forced the Kings XI batsmen to look for pushes and nudges. Shaun Marsh couldn't keep one of those flicks down as he found midwicket. On a pitch with a bit of grass, Kaushik found no turn, but his quick-arm action caused the ball to skid off the surface. Glenn Maxwell missed an attempted a cut off Kaushik's next delivery as the ball snuck under his bat. Dinesh Karthik belted out an appeal and the umpire raised his finger, much to Maxwell's bewilderment.
Kings XI's problems worsened when Gurkeerat Singh, one of four changes for Kings XI, was run out after an acrobatic effort from James Faulkner at point. Kings XI stuttered from 65 for 0 to 73 for 4 as the Lions bowlers found their lengths to limit the batsmen to singles.
David Miller and Wriddhiman Saha, though, found the boundary regularly in their 39-run stand as the pair laid a strong platform for a late surge. That did not come as Dwayne Bravo and Praveen Kumar brought out their slower balls to flummox Kings XI's lower order. Lions conceded one four off the last three overs and picked up five wickets to bowl Kings XI out for 154.
Lions suffered the worst of two collapses to stutter to their second loss of the season, in eight games.
29th match
Rising Pune Supergiants 159/5 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians 161/2 (18.3/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians won by 8 wickets (with 9 balls remaining)
Mumbai Indians brought the curtains down on Maharashtra Day with an eight-wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiants at the MCA Stadium. Rohit Sharma's fourth half-century in a chase this season - an unbeaten 60-ball 85 - helped make light work of a 160 chase as they sealed their fifth win with nine balls to spare.
Rohit merely completed the job that was set up by Mumbai's bowlers, who clawed back to concede just 66 in the second half of Supergiants' innings after Steven Smith and Saurabh Tiwary clobbered the ball to all parts of the ground in their second-wicket stand of 84 off 44 balls.
A flurry of boundaries, misjudged catches and poor fielding formed the crux of the first 10 overs of the Supergiants innings afer Ajinkya Rahane's early dismissal. Smith, who was reprieved on 1 by Parthiv Patel, was quickly into his stride, hitting three successive boundaries off Tim Southee in the third over.
The confidence of a century in the previous game showed in Smith's approach of trying to dominate right from the outset. One moment, he was pulling in front of square. Next, he swiftly used the depth of the crease to cut and ramp the ball over third man. He raced to 33 off 14 deliveries as Supergiants brought up their fifty in the sixth over.
It wasn't only Smith who rode luck, though. Tiwary, who should have been sent back for four, was let off when Jasprit Bumrah fluffed a regulation chance at mid-on in the fourth over, off Mitchell McClenaghan. The let-off galvanized Tiwary, who raced from 6 off 11 deliveries to 34 off 22 balls, as Supergiants took control.
His modus operandi wasn't too complicated: staying deep inside the crease, he cleared his front leg and used his big broad shoulders to repeatedly find the legside boundaries. He was severe on Krunal Pandya, the left-arm spinner, who was hit for two sixes and a four in his second over that went for 20.
Bumrah was reintroduced with Supergiants at 91 for 1 in nine overs, and he struck off his second delivery when Smith's attempted dab down to third man resulted in a deflection to MS Dhoni. From there on, the innings stuttered like a two-stroke engine running out of oil.
The pressure of being unable to keep up with the scoring resulted in Peter Handscomb picking out deep square leg. Two quick wickets not only allowed Mumbai to apply the brakes, but also brought about an air of hesitancy in Tiwary's game. MS Dhoni, who walked in to bat at No. 5 in the 13th over, also struggled to bring out his big hits.
While McClenaghan hustled the batsmen, Bumrah varied his lengths effectively through a mix of yorkers and cutters to apply the brakes. Harbhajan Singh too, without threatening to take wickets, kept a lid on the runs by darting the ball and cramping the batsmen for room. All of this resulted in Supergiants hitting just three fours from in their last 11 overs as Mumbai went into the break with momentum.
Rohit made his intentions clear. Happy to swing the length balls, he got away with two thick edges that flew towards third man, in the third over. Parthiv was in sparkling form though, driving on the up to hit Ashok Dinda for three successive boundaries before nicking the fourth ball to Dhoni. By then, Mumbai had wiped out 39 in four overs.
Ambati Rayudu did what he normally does, quietly nudge the ball, pick the singles and hit the odd boundary. He broke the shackles in the seventh over, Ashwin's first, by stepping out and lofting him for a six over long-on. With little or no pressure to contend with, Rohit effortlessly reeled off runs, a majority of which came in the arc between deep midwicket and long-on.
Rayudu fell trying to hit one too many to give Supergiants a respite. But 67 off eight overs gave Jos Buttler enough time to find his hitting range, even as Rohit brought up his fifth fifty in five chases to throw Supergiants' campaign into disarray as they continued to sit in the bottom half of the table with six losses in eight matches.
30th match
RCB 185/7 (20/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders 189/5 (19.1/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders won by 5 wickets (with 5 balls remaining)
Andre Russell and Yusuf Pathan are among the most powerful strikers of the ball in world cricket. The Chinnaswamy Stadium is among the world's smaller grounds, and contains one of its flatter pitches. The ingredients came together spectacularly as Kolkata Knight Riders' Nos. 5 and 6 defied a steep asking rate and put on 96 runs in 44 balls to power their side to a five-wicket win, with five balls remaining, over Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Bowling first, Knight Riders' had kept Royal Challengers quiet for 17 overs, despite half-centuries from KL Rahul and Virat Kohli. Shane Watson, Sachin Baby and Stuart Binny then plundered 54 off the last three overs to lift Royal Challengers to 185.
Kohli later contended that his side's total was about 10 above par. But given Royal Challengers' bowling strength - or lack thereof, particularly with Chris Gayle's return forcing them to leave out Kane Richardson - and Knight Riders' batting depth, they might have needed 10 runs more.
Royal Challengers' bowling held up well initially, with Binny's outswing removing his Karnataka team-mate Robin Uthappa in the first over, and Yuzvendra Chahal producing a ripping legbreak to bowl the leaden-footed Chris Lynn. When Gautam Gambhir and Manish Pandey fell within eight balls of each other, either side of the 10-over mark, Knight Riders were falling behind rapidly.
Knight Riders know they can score two runs a ball with Russell and Yusuf at the crease, and their asking rate was just under 12 an over when they came together. But it was just under 12 an over for a considerable length of time: they needed 110 off 58 balls. Though it was still a good pitch for batting, it was offering the quicks spongy bounce if they bent their backs, and the spinners a fair amount of grip.
In the first two full overs with Russell and Yusuf Pathan at the crease, they hit a six each, but were also beaten by Varun Aaron's bounce and Yuzvendra Chahal's turn. This still looked like anyone's game.
The defining moment came in the 14th over, when Chahal left Russell stranded five feet down the pitch. Just like Russell, Rahul was beaten by the lack of turn, and the ball shot away for four byes. Two balls later, a quickish slider down the leg side shot past Rahul before he could react, and ran away for five wides.
Russell mishit, slogged, and flat-batted Tabraiz Shamsi's left-arm wristspin for six, six and four in the next over, and Knight Riders now needed 63 off the last five. Yusuf whipped Aaron to the midwicket boundary, and Russell mishit another six - it only just cleared the cover boundary - as Knight Riders took 16 runs from the 16th over.
Watson came on to bowl the 17th. Usually the most reliable of Royal Challengers' bowlers, he sent down two length balls first up - the first on the stumps and the second wide of off - and Yusuf heaved them away to the midwicket and extra cover boundaries. A bouncer followed, and Yusuf got just enough bat on his pull to fetch the ball from outside off stump and find the square leg boundary. Then another length ball, and Yusuf easily cleared long-on. When he edged the last ball of the over to the third man boundary, the game was over - Knight Riders now only needed 23 off 18.
Knight Riders had recalled Morne Morkel to their side, and he quickly discovered tennis-ball bounce to dismiss the returning Gayle. Bowling largely back of a length, Morkel and Russell kept Kohli and Rahul quiet in the Powerplay, denying them both room and leverage.
Rahul gave Royal Challengers impetus, taking on the spinners, and using the sweep - regular, slog and reverse - for two fours and a six off Sunil Narine. But just when Royal Challengers were shifting gear, they lost Rahul and AB de Villiers in the space of 16 balls. Kohli joined them in the 17th over, picking out sweeper cover immediately after Gautam Gambhir had dropped him at point, and Royal Challengers seemed in danger of falling short of 160.
But Knight Riders' quicks struggled in the slog overs. Umesh Yadav lost his radar completely, sending down two high full-tosses in the 17th, and ended with figures of 0 for 56 in four overs, with 41 coming off his last two overs. Russell gave away 13 in the 19th. In all, Watson, Baby and Binny hit seven fours and three sixes in the last three overs.
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