Farcical fielding and a costly let-off

The miscommunication

Ajinkya Rahane and Usman Khawaja are new opening partners and the lack of understanding between them was evident from the outset. On the last ball of the second over, Khawaja flicked the ball to midwicket. He was going nowhere, but Rahane came almost halfway down the pitch, before scampering back in time. Two balls later, Rahane fended one behind square in the gully region and took an idle step out while watching the ball. Khawaja, on the other hand, hared down the pitch. Just as Khawaja began to put the brakes on, Rahane noticed his partner and took a couple of steps down, which was enough to persuade Khawaja to keep coming. As soon as Khawaja resumed his progress down the pitch, though, Rahane changed his mind again, turned his back on Khawaja and gently put his bat down behind the crease as Khawaja joined him at the striker's end.

The consecutive drops and the non-attempt

By the sixth over, Saurabh Tiwary was finding his timing and looking in decent touch. On the third ball of the over, Tiwary chipped a Varun Aaron half-volley straight to Stuart Binny at cover point. Binny had to move forward slightly, but got both hands to it and still put it down. The next ball was a touch shorter and Tiwary cut it to Sachin Baby at point, at a comfortable catching height. Baby, too, shelled it, giving the batsmen time to run through for a single. Aaron had an incredulous smile on his face.

Aaron returned for the eighth over, and, off the first ball, he induced a leading edge from Rahane that ballooned in the air in the region of short mid-on. Shane Watson ran in to take it but, inexplicably, stopped just as he was reaching it and allowed it to drop down right in front of him. Aaron was incredulous again, but this time there was no smile.

The wicketkeeping woes

As Royal Challengers' fielding went into meltdown mode, KL Rahul followed suit behind the stumps. On the first ball of the ninth over, Yuzvendra Chahal beat a charging Tiwary with a fine googly, but Rahul failed to collect the ball. It bounced off the base of his gloves, rebounded off the grill of his helmet and bounced away in front of him as Tiwary scampered back. Two balls later, Rahane dropped the ball in the short-leg region and set off for a quick run. Rahul sprinted to the ball but couldn't pick it up cleanly, allowing the batsmen to make their ground safely. Virat Kohli was seething, and his next throw to the keeper seemed to have a little extra venom in it.

The belated appeal

RP Singh's appeal for lbw, after a delivery to Rahul in the second over of the chase, came as his team-mates' appeals had run their course and were starting to die down. That was not because he was any less convinced than the others, but because he took a tumble in his follow-through and rolled around before managing to find his feet again. It seemed as if the ungainly look of it all took away from the intensity of his appeal and he quickly broke into a broad smile. In the event, the not-out decision was correct, as the ball - bowled over the wicket by the left-arms quick - pitched marginally outside leg, before straightening slightly to hit the batsman's back pad right in front.

The miked-up agony

In the third over of the chase, Kohli, then on 4, punched the ball to George Bailey at mid-off and set off for a risky single. Bailey, who was miked-up to chat with the commentators, picked up the ball cleanly and shied at the stumps but missed narrowly while Kohli desperately dived into the crease. For a while thereafter, Bailey seemed oblivious to the commentators' chatter, letting out a guttural grunt of despair. When he had gathered himself again, he was helpfully informed by the commentators that if he had hit, Kohli would have been out. "Don't tell me that," Bailey implored. A little later in the conversation, he admitted that he couldn't stop thinking about the missed opportunity. "I hope it doesn't prove costly," he added. And it did.