Bowlers shine on opening day

Medium-pacer DT Kumaran's four-wicket haul, two in two balls and the other two in three balls, allowed the Chennai Superstars to defend their modest total of 143 against the Mumbai Champs in Bangalore. Mumbai managed only 125 in their 20 overs after Kumaran took wickets at both ends of the innings. G Vignesh chipped in with 2 for 17. For Chennai R Sathish scored 58 and his 76-run stand with Hemang Badani (30) anchored the innings, where no other batsman made more than 19. They were at 3 for 2 when Sathish was joined by Badani in the middle. The two batsmen scored at more than eight an over. After Sathish's fall the run-rate dropped and the last six batsmen added only 49 in the remaining 38 balls.

Eklak Ahmid took three top-order wickets and conceded only 19 runs in his four overs to give the Royal Bengal Tigers a 32-run win over the Hyderabad Heroes in Hyderabad. Chasing 158, Hyderabad lost wickets at regular intervals and Ibrahim Khaleel's 25 was the innings' top score. Ahmid broke the partnerships for the first and second wicket before the batsmen could settle down. Bengal's lower-order batsmen, Subhomoy Das and Mihir Diwakar, made up for their side's sedate start by adding 54 runs in only 22 balls. Abu Nechim's 12 off three balls gave Bengal additional runs that eventually. proved extra.

The threat of rain probably pushed the Delhi Giants' top order to race towards the target of 130 set by the Ahmedabad Rockets and they were scoring at seven an over, well above par score, when it started raining 11 overs in to their innings in Hyderabad. The openers, Abhinav Bali and Monish Mishra, added 31 in 22 balls before medium-pacer Baburao Yadav had Bali caught behind for 20. Jai P Yadav spurred the innings on even after Mishra's fall two overs later, with 22 off 21 balls. In five overs he added 39 with Abbas Ali to hand Delhi a win in their opening game of the tournament. Reetinder Sodhi's 43, scored at the strike-rate of over 138, wasn't enough to boost Ahmedabad's total after medium-pacer Shalabh Srivastava dismissed their openers in the first over.