Both the teams are coming into this match with confidence and momentum on their side. KKR won the toss and as expected they opted to bowl at the Pune stadium. Rising Pune Supergiant got of to a sedate start and then they kicked-up momentum shifting gears Rahane and Tripathi were going at a steady rate when Tripathi fell to Piyush Chawla for a breathtaking 38 off 23 balls. That did not affect Rahane who continued on, along with Smith who was looking to get the singles coming. They were playing risk-free cricket. At the end of the half way through the match the score was 82 for 1 after 10 overs.
Kuldeep Yadav was then introduced after the tenth over and he was taken for a boundary of his first ball. The best part of Rahane’s knock was that he was playing the ball at his merit. He was never forcing the issue, same with Smith. Rahane was finally dismissed stumped of the bowling of Narine for 48 off 41 balls. That saw Mahendra Singh Dhoni walk out amidst huge crowd cheer. MSD climbed into his act straightaway, by taking on Chawla for 15 off one over.
But it was Kuldeep Yadav who wrecked havoc, picking up MSD and Manoj Tiwary in one over for 23 and 1 respectively, that is what really hurt their final score. Kuldeep picked up 2 wickets in his quota of 4 overs, giving away 31 runs. Narine went for 34 in 4 overs picking one wicket. Chawla went for 36 runs in 4 overs and picked up a wicket.
But lusty hitting by Dan Christian and Steve Smith took them to a healthy defendable.
