The bitter end

affecting the Knight

Riders, the shackles they placed upon themselves eventually becoming too difficult to break.

Twenty-five for one in the powerplay. Sixty-one for four just past the halfway mark. When a batting team falls so far behind the rate, they start to hit out at everything. The Royals understood that and put all of their effort into taking the pace off, while also digging it into the pitch.

Mustafizur Rahman (one for 22), Chetan Sakariya (one for 31) and Jaydev Unadkat (one for 25) were especially useful in this regard, posing problems even for a hitter like Andre Russell because they took away his base and therefore his power.

Ironically, it was two seam-up deliveries that took down the Knight Riders' two finishers, Chris Morris dismissing Russell and Dinesh Karthik in the 18th over and setting his team up with a below-par target of 134 to chase.

Samson steps up

Knowing it was only a matter of lasting the full 20 overs, the Rajasthan Royals’ captain Samson (42 not out off 41 balls) took the responsibility upon himself and made sure he was out there when the winning runs were scored.

The innings began with a flowing cover drive against Varun Chakravarthy's mystery spin and included a vicious six off Pat Cummins' pace, but for the most part of the game, Samson was focused on just being at the crease, ticking the singles over so that he could, with as little risk as possible, push his often fragile team across that finish line for only their second win in this IPL.