Narine's all-round show sets up tense win for KKR

Sunil Narine's figures at one point: 2.1-0-25-0. Varun Chakravarthy at another: 3-0-31-0. In a chase of 205, having restricted a rampant Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Delhi Capitals (DC) were in the ascendence, having punished the two main KKR weapons. And then the two of them came back with a vengeance: combined, they bowled their last 17 balls for five wickets and 12 runs to get KKR's title defence back on track.

DC's captain Axar Patel topped up his figures of 4-0-27-2 with three sixes off Narine despite an injured bottom hand. Narine found himself captaining KKR after Ajinkya Rahane split his finger open and vice-captain Venkatesh Iyer had been substituted out. Captaining was not the only rare thing he did: he also ran KL Rahul out with a direct hit from short fine leg. His real blows came with the ball: wickets of Axar, Tristan Stubbs and top-scorer Faf du Plessis as DC went from 136 for 3 to 190 for 9.

Some of it was down to some ordinary bowling from DC fast bowlers, who frequently kept overpitching, but KKR were not complaining. Narine, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rahane took toll of the wayward overs to 91 in seven overs. They put together their best opening stand - 48 - of the year and their second-best powerplay - 79. The only problem for KKR was that all three got out in the mid-20s, leaving Rinku Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi with a repair job in the second half of the middle overs.

Rinku and Raghuvanshi added 61 in 7.3 overs for the fifth wicket, gave Andre Russell the perfect platform, but somehow Russell spent more time watching from the non-strikers. He faced only nine balls in three overs as wickets kept falling at the other end. Only 45 came in the last five overs, turning a great start on the best batting surface in Delhi so far into just the second-highest total there this year.

KKR might be many things but they are not conservative. They threw the new ball to Anukul Roy, in his first match of the season, to bowl at a left-hand batter, on a non-responsive pitch and with only two fielders out. He was smashed for four first ball, but an arm ball got rid of Porel immediately. Vaibhav Arora, relegated to the second over for a change, got Karun Nair lbw with a yorker. Rahul indulged in one of the most wasteful activities in any form of cricket: the quick single. So poorly judged was the run that even Narine could run him out.

Du Plessis, though, was loving the pace in the pitch after his struggles in the last match. To help du Plessis out, Axar, who spent the end of the first innings off the field with an injured left hand, took down Narine like few others have. Only once has a batter hit more sixes off Narine in an IPL innings. It was also a night when Varun seemed off, not even trying to spin the ball and getting hit off high-pace deliveries.

With du Plessis taking down pace and Axar taking care of spin, it looked like a cruise when Axar hit Narine for his third six to make it 69 required off 41 with two big hitters still in the shed. Axar just happened to hit a slower short ball straight to cover, giving Narine an opening, which he burst through with a small offbreak to Stubbs in the same over.

Now Narine the captain also got into the act. Despite overs of pace up his sleeve, he went back to Roy. Here is why: by the end of his innings, du Plessis' strike-rate against spin was 100 and 206.25 against pace. They bowled 29 balls of spin at him, and only 16 of pace. He scored only eight off the last 13 balls he faced. Narine was there to accept the wicket when he played the desperate shot 59 required off 29.

DC still had Ashutosh Sharma and Nigam, they took 11 off the 17th over, and Narine now trusted his spin twin despite the night he had had. And Varun responded with dot, wicket, wicket to send back Ashutosh and Mitchell Starc. Game over.

KKR now have nine points from ten games, just staying in touch with the top six. With 12 points in ten matches, DC were now under threat of not finishing in the top two after a great start to their tournament.