Live report - Siraj bowls Parag but Royals in control

Two fours at the start of the 19th over for Powell off Ferguson, both towards the third man boundary, and neither is off the middle of the bat. Royals will take them, and who wouldn't?

And three dot balls later, Powell finishes it off, emphatically. A full ball, up in the slot, and he drills it for a straight six and holds his pose with left elbow high. A win set up by Royals' bowlers, who kept RCB down to a well-below-par total, considering the dew and how much of an advantage it has bestowed on the chasing team.

Boult, Ashwin and Avesh were all terrific earlier today, and Jaiswal and Parag superb in the chase. I'd give Boult the PoM if it were up to me, but let's see how the adjudicators see it.

RCB's dream run from the bottom of the table ends. Six wins on the bounce followed by defeat in the Eliminator. They can hold their heads up high, but on this day Royals were better than them. They're through to Qualifier 2 on May 24 in Chennai, where they'll meet Sunrisers Hyderabad.

If you want a fielder under an awkwardly swirling ball, after that fielder has turned around and run from the 30-yard circle towards the boundary, with the ball dropping from over his shoulder...

...you want that fielder to be Faf du Plessis.

Mohammed Siraj gets his second wicket of the 18th over, slanting a fullish one across the left-handed Hetmyer, who ends up slicing his attempted leg-side hit over the cover region. Faf does the rest. Royals are 160 for 6, and they now need 13 off the last 12 balls.

They have Rovman Powell at the crease, and R Ashwin joins him, but there isn't a lot of batting to come thereafter.

Full and straight from Siraj with Royals needing 16 from 17, and Parag picks the wrong ball for a swing across the line.

Rovman Powell joins Hetmyer with 16 needed from 16. Royals are still well on top, but you never know...

Eleven off the 17th, with Hetmyer hitting Dayal for a pair of fours, and it's down to a run a ball, almost. Royals need 19 off 18.

It was starting to get a little tense, but Royals find a big over, and it's off Cam Green who had been bowling so well. Three overs for just 11 up until this 16th, which goes for 17. Hetmyer starts it off with a six over wide long-on, and then Parag takes over: a lovely inside-out six over the covers, then he backs away to ramp a shortish ball over short third for four.

Parag is on 35 off 23 at the end of that over, and Royals need 30 off 24.

Riyan Parag whips Siraj towards long-on, and it's not going straight to the fielder, and he runs the first one hard. A second run always seems to be on. But for some reason he stops at the bowler's end, ball-watching, even as Hetmyer hares out from the other end. Hetmyer and Parag are almost level when Parag finally begins to run, and he makes it in the end, beating the throw to the far end. This is one hell of a nervy chase from Royals, who are, in numerical terms, still favourites.

He's had a bumper season with the bat, and he's been electric on the field too. A superb one-bounce throw from the deep after haring to his left from deep square leg, and Dhruv Jurel, diving to complete a stuttering second run, is short of his ground. Cameron Green botches his collection, but the ball somehow sticks in his hands as he breaks the wicket even though he's fumbled it. A bit of good fortune for RCB, coming at the end of a terrific bit of work on the field.

Royals are 112 from 13.1 overs, and Shimron Hetmyer, the Impact Player, joins Parag in the middle. Royals need 61 from 41 balls.

A note about that run-out. Law 29.2.1.5 states that the wicket is broken if a bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps, or a stump is struck out of the ground, "by a fielder with his/her hand or arm, providing that the ball is held in the hand or hands so used, or in the hand of the arm so used." We're trying to work out if "held" here also applies if the ball happens to be in contact with the arm/hand while not being "held" in a conventional sense.

Cameron Green is getting through a good little spell of hit-the-deck bowling, with some purchase from this Ahmedabad deck that has bounce in it if you hit it hard. Just the seven runs in his first two overs, plus the wicket of Jaiswal, and an appeal for caught behind when Riyan Parag missed a hook. RCB reviewed the not-out decision, but there was no bat or glove. Royals are 100 for 3 in 12 overs.

Huge, huge moment, potentially. Samson rushes down the pitch to Karn Sharma, and he's moving leg-side too, perhaps anticipating a leg-stumpish line and an inside-out shot. But he leaves his crease too early, and Karn bowls wide of off stump, away from Samson's reach. He stretches out desperately, doesn't connect, and Karthik whips the bails off in a flash. Royals are 89 for 3 in 10.1 overs.

A crucial wicket for RCB in the 10th over. Jaiswal took a break to get some treatment, possibly for a cramp, and then shaped to shuffle across and scoop Cameron Green fine. Only manages a little tickle of glove onto it - which is confirmed after RCB review the on-field not-out decision - and he walks back, caught behind for 45 off 30 balls. Royals are 81 for 2 in 9.2 overs.

A long-hop to Sanju Samson, and two balls offering width to Jaiswal, and the left-arm spinner concedes a six and two fours - all to the shorter boundary - in the seventh over. Royals rush to 64 for 1.

It's that slower legcutter, full and floaty and utterly confounding. Cohler-Cadmore jams his bat down on the wrong line, and the ball descends and pegs back off stump. TKC goees for 20 off 15, and Royals are 46 for 1 in 5.3 overs.

Two fours for TKC off Siraj in the fourth over, and one for Jaiswal, and Royals rush to 35 for no loss. Feels like dew is beginning to have an effect on proceedings too: the first boundary from Kohler-Cadmore was just a straight-bat push, but it absolutely raced away wide of mid-on. Then the four from Jaiswal, a pull off a hip-high short ball, seemed to stymie a sliding Swapnil on the square leg boundary by coming at him quicker than he expected.

Then the fifth over begins with the second drop of the innings, and unlike the chance Green put down off Jaiswal, this one's an absolute sitter that Glenn Maxwell shells at deep square leg, after Cohler-Cadmore pulls Dayal flat and in the air. Dew, maybe, or just one of those random drops that can't be explained? Who knows. For now, RCB are watching this IPL run away from them.

First up, it's the left-arm orthodox spinner Swapnil Singh, and he bowls with the short boundary to the leg side for the RHB (and to the off side for the left-handed YAshasvi Jaiswal). Mohammed Siraj begins from the other end.

Royals make 6 for 0 in those two overs, and the lines are noticeably geared towards keeping the ball away from the short boundary. Swapnil, for example, slanted the ball across Jaiswal from left-arm round, and away from his hitting arc.

The pressure creates a chance in the third over, Jaiswal throwing his hands at an away-swinger from Yash Dayal that isn't quite a half-volley, and edging thickly. But the ball is travelling very quickly to the right of the diving Cameron Green at slip, and it's one of those that either sticks or doesn't. This one doesn't.

RCB would dearly love to have held onto that chance, because Jaiswal is a dangerous, dangerous player. He hits three fours off the next four balls, and Royals are 22 for no loss in three overs.

In the odd-numbered overs, RCB scored 51 for 6 in ten overs. In the even-numbered overs, they've scored 121 for 2.

This was partly because this was the end from where the bowlers had the longer leg-side boundary (for the right-hand batters), and partly because Royals' three best bowlers on the night - Trent Boult, R Ashwin and Avesh Khan - bowled the bulk of their overs from there. But the asymmetry of this ground seems like an influential factor today, and it'll be interesting to see how RCB's bowlers use it.

RCB end with 172 for 8, after Sandeep Sharma concedes 13 to Swapnil Singh and Karn Sharma in the final over, and ends the innings with a wicket. Is it enough? It feels a bit below-par, but it isn't a genuinely flat pitch either. There are signs of dew already, though, so you'd think Royals begin the chase as favourites.

Is this it for DK? Good short ball from Avesh, gets it to climb steeply without offering a great deal of width outside off. DK looks to manufacture room and slap it away, but it gets big on him and he hits it high in the air, from where it eventually drops to Jaiswal who judges it well in the covers.

Replays show that this was the legcutter. A difficult ball to hammer into the pitch like that, but Avesh does it and does it brilliantly.

RCB are 154 for 6 with 10 balls to go. Swapnil Singh, their Impact Player, comes in, replacing Patidar.

Later in the over, Avesh gets the set Mahipal Lomror for an excellent 17-ball 32. He's slanting the ball away from the left-hander with the longer boundary on the off side. Takes on the off-side boundary and is caught by the sweeper at deep cover.

Well, well.

The 15th over starts with a six, and it's a notable one. It's the first boundary RCB have hit in an odd-numbered over today, partly down to the longer boundary being on the leg side, and partly down to Boult and Ashwin bowling from that end and bowling brilliantly. Avesh goes short, angling in over Patidar's left shoulder, and gets hooked over the fine leg boundary.

Then Avesh gets Patidar, caught off a miscue by mid-off running backwards.

But then comes the real drama. A brilliant inducker, and Dinesh Karthik is given out lbw for a first-baller. He reviews, however, and bat, ball and pad are all so close together around the moment of impact. Was it inside edge onto the pad, or was it bat striking pad just as the ball passed the inside edge? To me it looked like the latter, and in a 50-50 case it should have probably stayed with the on-field call, but the third umpire, Anil Chaudhary, feels it's conclusively an inside-edge, and instructs on-field umpire KN Ananthapadmanabhan to reverse his decision.

Kumar Sangakkara, the Royals coach, is incensed, and he rushes off his chair immediately to have a word with the fourth umpire, but the decision has been made.

It could have been 122 for 6, but DK survives, and RCB end the 15th over at 125 for 5.

RCB are five down in the 14th over, but this is T20 cricket in 2024. Patidar middles a slog-sweep into the crowd (towards the shorter boundary) and then the left-handed Mahipal Lomror goes with the turn and just clears Yashasvi Jaiswal sprinting to his left on the longer boundary at deep midwicket. A difficult chance that he can't quite get his hands around. Patidar then crashes a four through the covers when offered width, and RCB end up taking 19 off this Yuzvendra Chahal over. RCB are 116 for 4 in 14.

The Ashwin carrom ball produced a chance against Patidar in his third over, and it produces another chance (this looked like the reverse carrom ball that straightened off the deck after shaping in through the air) in his fourth. This time it's Cam Green's turn to miscue a big hit, and Rovman Powell completes his second excellent grab of the day, falling backwards after backtracking from cover and catching the ball over his head with both hands.

And a ball later, Ashwin has two wickets. Glenn Maxwell has a history of dominating Ashwin, but today isn't his day. Looks for the big shot first ball, ends up shovelling it straight into long-on's hands.

Ashwin finishes with two dots to Mahipal Lomror, and ends with outstanding figures of 4-0-19-2.

On April 15, we published this statistical deep-dive into fielding in IPL 2024, and we'd noted that Dhruv Jurel had converted all of the six catching chances that had come his way.

It's been a while since then, and I'm not sure how Jurel's chance conversion has gone in the interim, but today he's put down a dolly. Ashwin bowls a carrom ball into the pitch, and Rajat Patidar skews an attempted cross-bat slog high in the air. Jurel sprints in from long-on, gets right under the chance, and shells it. Patidar was on 5 at that point.

RCB end the 11th over at 82 for 2. Ashwin has 0 for 17 from three overs.

It's likely that RCB are taking more risks against Chahal than Ashwin because he's bowling with the shorter boundary on the leg side. Floats one slightly into Cameron Green's arc, and he brings out the slog-sweep and nails it for six. Then he goes wider and quicker in response, and Green frees his arms to flay it past extra-cover for four.

Thirteen come from that over, and RCB are 76 for 2 at the halfway stage.

Sometimes, when you bowl soon after wickets have fallen, batters can't take risks against you. Ashwin has bowled the seventh and ninth overs, soon after Boult and Chahal have taken wickets, and RCB have played him out quietly. He's done his bit too, bowling at a high pace, not giving the batters any room, and bowling just the right lengths - either into the pitch or right up by the batter's toes. He's got figures of 2-0-11-0, and RCB are 63 for 2 in nine overs.

It's been one of the stories of the season. Virat Kohli has brought the slog-sweep out of cold storage, and has used it brilliantly to overturn a long-standing trend of slow scoring against spin.

But like every other shot, the slog-sweep comes with a risk of dismissal. Today isn't quite Kohli's day, and his first attempt at the shot, in the eighth over, ends up perfectly picking out deep midwicket. The shot was on, especially since Yuzvendra Chahal is bowling with the shorter square boundary on the leg side, but on this day it doesn't quite come off.

Kohli falls for 33 off 24, and RCB are 56 for 2 in 7.2 overs.

RCB end it at 50 for 1, with Kohli continuing to look fluent and show high intent. Two fours in the sixth over, Sandeep's second, and both involve premeditation: making room for a slap over mid-off, and stepping out for a whip wide of mid-on. Boult has conceded six runs and two leg byes in three overs, and the bowlers at the other end have gone for 42 in three. Riveting game so far.

It's Trent Boult vs RCB right now, and the left-arm quick is dominating his end even as runs flow from the other. Royals extend his new-ball spell into a third over, and he continues to swing it, bowl tight lines, and bowl to his field. Only three runs come off his first three balls, and du Plessis, looking to pull one away, hits in the air and towards deep midwicket, where Rovman Powell takes one of the catches of the season, diving forward for a low, two-handed grab. Faf goes for 17 off 14, and Boult follows up with two dots to Cameron Green. RCB are 37 for 1 in five, and Boult has 1 for 6 in three overs. Outstanding.

That's what's happened at the opposite end to Boult's, though. Royals take Sandeep out of the attack after an expensive first over, and replace him with Avesh Khan, and he goes for 17 in the fourth over.

Some of it is off-target bowling, like a short ball, angling down leg, that Kohli hooks for six, and some of it is pure intent from RCB, like du Plessis stepping across for a scoop over short fine. This is a strong start from RCB, making sure Boult's tight overs aren't tying them down too much.

After four overs, they're 34 for 0.

Boult is bowling an excellent new-ball spell, swinging the ball consistently into the right-handers, denying them room to free their arms, and adjusting his lines and lengths perfectly when the batters move around the creasse. Concedes just two in his second over, and Royals are 17 for 0 after three.

Trent Boult gets that left-arm inswing going in his first over, conceding just two runs and yanking Faf du Plessis' feet out from under him with a yorker that kept homing in on his toes, but RCB's openers survive it.

Sandeep Sharma, who has dismissed Virat Kohli more often than anyone else in the IPL, bowls the second over. Kohli charges his third ball and whips him wide of mid-on for four. He'd used his feet once in the first over too, unsuccessfully, and apart from everything else it does it's also a ploy to neutralise the swing.

Sanju Samson knows this, and Sandeep Sharma is on the medium end of the medium-fast spectrum, so he comes up to the stumps to prevent the batter from stepping out. Can't prevent the bowler from sending down a half-volley that du Plessis smacks for a straight six, though.

RCB are 14 for 0 after two overs.

"Heavy dew last night, so we'd like to bowl," Sanju Samson says. One change, and a big one for Royals. Shimron Hetmyer is back from injury. RCB, meanwhile, are unchanged.

Hetmyer doesn't start for Royals, but you expect he'll come in as the Impact substitute at the innings break.

Chasing seems like a no-brainer after last night's result. It will be interesting to see if Royals can find some of the movement that KKR extracted with the new ball, and if Trent Boult can have an effect similar to that of Mitchell Starc yesterday. Faf du Plessis says the pitch looks a little drier than it did yesterday, for what it's worth.

One notably shorter square boundary today, 61m as opposed to 68m on the other side. This should influence what end who bowls from, and which bowlers operate in partnership. A tactical dimension to keep an eye on through the night.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 1 Faf du Plessis (capt), 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Glenn Maxwell, 4 Rajat Patidar, 5 Cameron Green, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Mahipal Lomror, 8 Yash Dayal, 9 Karn Sharma, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Lockie Ferguson. Subs: Swapnil Singh, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Vyshak Vijayjumar, Himanshu Sharma.

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Tom Kohler-Cadmore, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Rovman Powell, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Trent Boult, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal. Subs: Nandre Burger, Shubham Dubey, Donovan Ferreira, Tanush Kotian, Shimron Hetmyer.

Alagappan Muthu is in Ahmedabad, and he's keeping a close eye on a guy you may have heard of.

Here's what he's seeing now: "A sea of RCB support has their eyes glued to Virat Kohli taking throwdowns. A lot of these balls are pitched up and looking for lbw or bowled. Kinda like the balls that Trent Boult might be threatening him with in a few minutes' time. Kohli makes sure not to overcommit on his front foot, but he's still looking to shift his weight forward, keep his head over the line of the ball, without falling over, and has been nailing the flicks and the drives."