Jaiswal, Chahal take RR to third on record-breaking night

The Rajasthan Royals steamrolled the Kolkata Knight Riders by nine wickets on a record-breaking night at the Eden Gardens to rekindle their hopes of finishing in the top four in IPL 2023. Yuzvendra Chahal became the leading wicket-taker in IPL history with his second-successive fourth-wicket haul, restricting KKR to 149 for 8 before Yashasvi Jaiswal slammed the fastest half-century in IPL history. The left-hander took just 13 deliveries to get to his fifty and finished with a sublime 98* off 47 balls to take the Royals home with 6.5 overs to spare.

Rajasthan’s dominant victory broke a disappointing run of five defeats in their last six games, taking them above the Mumbai Indians to third in the points table.

Trent Boult returned to the Royals line-up for this crunch encounter in Kolkata and the Kiwi pacer responded with two key wickets in the powerplay, dismissing both openers. Shimron Hetmyer took an outstanding catch at deep square leg to dismiss Roy, while Gurbaz found a diving Sandeep Sharma at mid-off.

KKR struggled to find the boundary on a slow surface after the loss of two early wickets. Nitish Rana and Venkatesh Iyer managed just 30 runs in the first 30 balls of their partnership. The pair broke the shackles in an 18-run over off Ashwin, but Yuzvendra Chahal dented the hosts’ hopes with a sublime spell of 4 for 25. The leg-spinner removed Nitish Rana to pick up his record-breaking 184th IPL wicket and also dismissed Iyer for 57 with a loopy leg-break.

Chahal would also go on to add two more wickets to his tally, dismissing Shardul Thakur and Rinku Singh to help limit KKR to just 22 runs in the final four overs, setting up a target of 150.

In response, Yashasvi Jaiswal made a mockery of the run chase. Jaiswal set the tone by scoring the most runs in the opening over of an IPL game by a single batter, creaming Nitish Rana for 26 runs and racing away to the fastest half-century in IPL history, taking just 13 deliveries to get to the landmark.

Rajasthan lost Jos Buttler to a run-out in the second over, but the Jaiswal onslaught continued as he carted Harshit Rana and Shardul Thakur to get to his 50 by 2.5 over mark. The youngster helped the Royals add 78 runs inside the powerplay and kept them on track alongside Sanju Samson through the middle overs.

Jaiswal toyed with the KKR spinners on a challenging surface, displaying tremendous touch and timing. Samson, meanwhile, also got in on the action as well towards the end, finishing with 48 off 29 deliveries to help complete the chase in the 14th over, giving Rajasthan a major net run rate boost to go along with their much-needed victory.