Vijay's dual opening roles

Sandeep Sharma had bowled the first over of the chase and conceded eight. Would Mohit Sharma start off from the other end? Or perhaps Anureet Singh? Marcus Stoinis was another possible option. Instead, with two left-handers in, M Vijay decided to bowl his gentle offspin. Prior to this match, he had bowled nine overs in 147 T20s without a wicket. Could this be Vijay's masterstroke? Would David Warner or Shikhar Dhawan make a mistake in targetting him? Vijay sent down an innocuous over that was milked for eight runs. Vijay could argue that he did no worse than Sandeep.

Having scored 22 runs off 30 balls in his first three IPL innings, Hashim Amla would have been desperate for a strong start. When Amla crunched a cut off Bhuvneshwar Kumar off the second ball of the match, it went past Karn Sharma at point and raced away to the boundary. Karn did not need to stretch - much less dive - to get his hands to the ball, but somehow let the ball through. Amla got a start. An exhibition of wristy elegance followed. It all started with a misfield.

Ashish Nehra isn't known for sprightly fielding. The sight of Nehra in pursuit of a fast-moving ball does not generally inspire much confidence in a bowler. The sight of Nehra in pursuit of a slow-moving ball, on the other hand, stokes interest in a genuine contest. When Wriddhiman Saha pulled out a cheeky reverse dab off Karn in the 11th over, Nehra, at short third man, gave chase. Hopes that he would keep it to two subsided as Nehra struggled to catch up with the ball. When he finally caught up, it looked like he could limit it to three. Running abreast with the ball, he bent down to stop it near the boundary. He did not bend down low enough though, and the ball trickled into the boundary, much to the bowler's anguish.

Amla is associated more with classical strokeplay than funky tricks. Generally, Mustafizur Rahman is not a bowler to take too many liberties with. He had bowled two frugal overs, conceding 10 and taking a wicket. That didn't stop Amla from shuffling outside off stump to scoop a low full toss from Mustafizur over short fine leg for four. That was the first of three fours Amla hit in that over. The late-innings charge had begun.