Vohra dropped, Vijay run-out, off the same ball

That Zaheer Khan was playing his first competitive match in 11 months was apparent in Delhi Daredevils' IPL opener against Kolkata Knight Riders. He was sluggish on the field against Kings XI Punjab too, but it somehow worked in his favour. Seeing Kings XI opener Manan Vohra aim for a big shot, left-arm spinner Pawan Negi slowed the ball down and deceived the batsman. The outside edge lobbed up but Zaheer, lumbering to his left from cover, could not catch it and the ball bounced towards the point boundary. Vohra and Vijay had completed a second run by this time and looked for a third. And Zaheer, with a little help from team-mate Karun Nair, outsmarted them. Zaheer under-armed the ball to Nair, who threw it flat and hard to the wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock to effect the run-out of Vijay for 1.

Dwayne Bravo had broken the back of Kings XI's middle order on Monday by dismissing Glenn Maxwell and David Miller in one over with contrasting yorkers. On Friday, Amit Mishra, playing his 100th IPL match, repeated the feat. Mishra trapped Miller lbw with a skidder that pitched on leg stump, beat the sweep shot, and hit the batsman's pad in front of middle. Maxwell then departed for a three-ball duck when he shovelled a tossed-up ball to Carlos Brathwaite at long-off.

Chris Morris hit speeds north of 140 kph consistently and unleashed pinpoint yorkers against a sinking Kings XI batting line-up. He began with an inducker, which zipped through Shaun Marsh's defences. His fifth ball did the same, and pinged the batsman's back boot. Morris belted out an appeal for lbw, but replays showed the ball had pitched marginally outside leg. The fast bowler finished his spell with a 146 kph yorker, but it was the slow yorker, clocked at 125 kph, à la Bravo, which caught the eye. Morris lobbed one up in the penultimate over of the innings and got it to dip late on Pardeep Sahu, who managed to jam it down the ground.

Shreyas Iyer was one of the reasons Dardevils went looking for unheralded talents at the IPL auction. He was pushed down to No. 3 and bagged a duck in his first game this season. Iyer's bad luck continued despite a return to his opening position and Sandeep Sharma bowled an innocuous delivery down the leg side in the third over and Iyer tried to play a glance. There was a noise, and after a prolonged appeal the umpire adjudged Iyer caught behind. Snicko, however, picked up nothing.