Rajasthan Royals (RR) hosted Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur for the 15th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018. KKR had won two and lost two matches out of four matches, while RR had won 2 out of three matches played.
Dinesh Karthik won the toss and chose to field first. Both the teams went unchanged.
Karthik showed good captaincy as he employed spin from both ends against D’Arcy Short. Short continued his poor form against spinners at the top and all the hitting came to Ajinkya Rahane, who hit four fours in four balls against Sunil Narine in one over.
Rahane made 36 off 19 balls with 5 fours and 1 six, before he was stumped by Karthik off Rana. Shivam Mavi removed the hero of RR’s last win, Sanju Samson for 7 runs. Rana came back to remove Short for 44 off 43 balls, an innings in which he struggled against the spinners. Rahul Tripathi (15) was dismissed by Kuldeep and Chawla accounted for Stokes (14).
Sunil Narine had an off day as he went for 48 runs in his 4 overs, his most expensive spell ever in IPL.
In the end, Buttler (24 off 18 balls) was the one who took RR to 160
BRIEF SCORES:
RR 160/8 (D SHORT 44; N RANA 2/11)
