Rajasthan Royals 152 for 7 (Jaiswal 39, Hetmyer 27*, Rabada 2-18) win Kings of Punjab 147 for 8 (Ashutosh 31, Jitesh 29, Maharaj 2-23) with three wickets
However, it was Hetmyer who had the last say, who, despite an excellent penultimate over from Sam Curran and a good effort from Arshdeep Singh, won with a six off the penultimate ball. There were two sixes from Hetmyer before that.
The last one is over
Curran dismissed Rovman Powell and Keshav Maharaj in the 19th over, conceding ten runs, and Royals needed another ten from the 20th over. Hetmyer was on strike, so it always looked possible, but then Arshdeep bowled two glorious yorkers, which the batting could do nothing about, and the equation was reduced to ten from four.
The key shot in the final over was Hetmyer’s desperate chase down the ground off the third ball. Arshdeep hadn’t lost much of his length but that wasn’t quite on the block. Hetmyer swung hard and managed to bully this ball into the boundary pad – not over it – behind the bowler.
Only centimeters were inside. If Arshdeep had bowled a fraction fuller, Hetmyer couldn’t have got through. If Hetmyer hadn’t hit it with slightly fewer newtons of force behind it, the shot would have brought just four and six would have been needed from the last three.
Hetmyer collected the next ball towards long-on and took two, but Arshdeep’s worst ball was the fifth, and almost anyone could have hit it for a boundary. This one came juicy, knee deep, and on the stumps. Hetmyer shuffled and bowled it over deep fine leg, setting up a thriller.
Rabada’s charge
In defense of a modest goal, Rabada was intense. He bowled two tight powerplay overs, from which just 12 runs came, and then bowled aggressively in the middle overs as the Kings searched for wickets. He got Jaiswal with a short wide on the toe, then claimed the prized wicket of Royals captain Samson when he drove one back to hit the batsman on the back foot. Rabada conceded only two boundaries, which was also the number of wickets he took.
The Kings’ overwhelming innings
From that point, Ashutosh, Rabada and, to some extent, Curran did well to make such a tight game out of it.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf