Fiery Mandeep downs KKR in thriller

The penultimate ball of the penultimate over of the match. Umesh Yadav had his fine leg inside the circle, and Mandeep Singh stepped across his stumps to scoop the ball over the fielder. Deep backward square leg sprinted desperately to his right to stop the ball, but he had no chance. It had rained, and the outfield was a little slow, but this ball landed on a practice pitch and raced into the boundary.

Next ball, Mandeep skipped down the track and looked to swipe a length ball through mid-off. He ended up edging it to the third man boundary. In the space of two balls sprinkled with a fair measure of fortune, Royal Challengers Bangalore had gone from needing 20 to win from eight balls to needing 12 from six.

Such things happen all the time in Twenty20, but this was a rain-shortened 10-overs-a-side match. Even Ravi Shastri, interviewing the losing captain at the post-match presentation, commiserated with him, calling it a "lottery".

Mandeep, though, played a massive hand in deciding the fate of the lottery. He walked when Royal Challengers had just lost Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers in the space of six balls, when they needed 62 from 32 balls, and produced a stunning, unbeaten 18-ball 45 to power his team home with two balls remaining.

Mandeep's composure under pressure was fully tested, with only three runs coming off the first two balls of the final over, leaving 10 to get from four balls. He made room to get under an almost blockhole-length delivery from Andre Russell and carved him for a six over backward point, and pulled the next ball over deep backward square leg to send the Chinnaswamy Stadium into raptures.

Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli had given Royal Challengers the perfect start to a chase of 112 in 10 overs, but when Mandeep walked in, their batting depth was under test. Kohli fell when 32 were required from 17, but before that he and Mandeep had taken 18 off a Piyush Chawla over to tilt the momentum their way.

Rain pelted down almost immediately after Royal Challengers had chosen to bowl first, and delayed the start of play by two hours and 45 minutes. The reduction of overs meant this was now a contest between the power hitters from the two teams, but Kolkata Knight Riders didn't make any immediate changes to their batting order.

Gautam Gambhir put on 33 with Robin Uthappa at 8.60 an over, before slicing David Wiese in the air to point. Russell walked in, and immediately set to work, square-cutting Yuzvendra Chahal to the point boundary and smacking Varun Aaron for two sixes in the next over. Chahal dismissed Uthappa in the next over, but that was hardly noticeable in the midst of Russell's clean striking.

Two powerful straight hits off Wiese took Knight Riders to 86 for 2 at the end of the eighth over. Ryan ten Doeschate joined in the fun with a six and a four in the next over, off Harshal Patel, before a smart bit of thinking from Dinesh Karthik - who kept wickets without his right glove - brought about Russell's wicket while the batsmen tried to sneak a bye.

Russell had clouted 45 off 17, and maybe Knight Riders could have scored a few more had he been in the middle to face the final over. As it happened, Mitchell Starc gave away only nine runs - despite bowling a wide and a contentious no-ball - and 111 proved just within reach of Royal Challengers' line-up.