Simmons' luck and Suchith's mixed day

Lendl Simmons should have been out for a duck. He edged a perfect outswinger from Tim Southee, the second ball he faced, only for Sanju Samson to spill a fairly straightforward chance behind the stumps, diving low to his right. Given that life, Simmons played some sparkling shots and moved to 38 before his luck turned 180 degrees. Looking to paddle Ankit Sharma fine, Simmons didn't quite execute the shot the way he would have liked to, and was out lbw - except he wasn't, really; he more or less middled the ball on to his front pad.

Dhawal Kulkarni had bowled a long-hop the previous ball, and Rohit Sharma had clobbered it out of sight, over midwicket. As if to ensure he stopped bowling short, Kulkarni changed his field before bowling the next ball, sending a man back to the straight boundary and bringing fine leg up. Rohit sensed an opportunity to manufacture a boundary, and walked across his stumps just before Kulkarni reached his delivery stride. Kulkarni followed him and bowled it in the blockhole, outside off stump. Rohit backed himself to pull off the pick-up shot even from that line, and he nearly managed to beat short fine leg, but Ankit Sharma moved quickly to his left and stretched his left arm to its fullest height to pluck a stunning one-handed catch.

In pretty much every IPL match, the fielding frequently swings from the sublime to the ridiculous. Ajinkya Rahane, who can be a jumpy starter, attempted two strange across-the-line hoicks against Mitchell McClenaghan in the first over of Rajasthan Royals' chase. He inside-edged the first one past the stumps and top-edged the next one high into the leg side. J Suchith settled under it at square leg. He barely had to move. He had his hands in just the right position, just above chest-high, so he could see it fall into them, and he cradled the ball into them to cushion the impact, but pulled his hands down a touch too quickly and the ball slipped through his grasp and fell to the floor.

Soon after Rahane had thrown his wicket away with another wild swipe, Sanju Samson came into the middle. The second ball he faced, he tucked Vinay Kumar into the leg side. Suchith moved like lightning at short midwicket to stop the ball, and stop Samson from thinking about the single. At the other end, though, Shane Watson had come a long way out of his crease. He turned and dived into his crease as Suchith spun and threw in one motion. The ball hit the stumps direct and though short extra cover wasn't a long way from being in position to back up the throw, it simply raced away to the off-side boundary. Was Watson out, or had Samson picked up four cheap runs? Replays showed Watson had made his ground just in time to beat Suchith's arm.