Kings XI Punjab diffused the batting for Rajasthan Royals at the Holkar Stadium, Indore. Batting first, RR could put up only 152/9, a total which looks terribly small in form of Chris Gayle and KL Rahul. Punjab spinners tonight took the lead role and picked most of the wickets also keeping the run-rate under the check. Except for Jos Buttler, no one else could score big.

It was R. Ashwin who called the correct side of the coin at the toss and inserted Rajasthan in to bat first. Kings XI Punjab went back to Manoj Tiwary and dropped Yuvraj Singh. Rajasthan included railway’s bowler Anureet Singh in the place of Dhawal Kulkarni.

With so many openers in the hut, RR had to decide which two to go with. They chose Buttler and Short but the experience failed quickly. R Ashwin bowled the opening over with two overseas batsmen at the crease. He removed D’Arcy Short in the first over itself. While Jos Buttler was hammering the KXIP bowling, Axar nicked out Rahane at the other end of 5.

Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler stitched the highest partnership (49) of the innings. Once Samson was out for 28, the gates opened for KXIP. Ben Stokes was then out to a spectacular pair-catch by Mayank Agarwal and Manoj Tiwary. RR from 84/2 flunked down ultimately to 152/9.

Shreyas Gopal at the end scored a crucial 24(16) and took RR to a defendable total. Buttler top-scored with 51 runs from 39 balls. Mujeeb led the bowling attack with 3/27 and he was on hat-trick also. Andrew Tye picked 2/24 to keep down RR.