Twitter Reactions: Kuldeep Yadav's heroic spell restricts the Royals to 142

Rajasthan Royals (RR) needed one final performance from Jos Buttler before leaving the country as he was recalled to the Test side of England for the upcoming series against Pakistan. He didn’t disappoint though by scoring 39 runs off just 22 deliveries after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) invited them to bat first at the Eden Gardens. It was a must-win game for both the sides and they needed their respective gun players to fire in the most important game. However, it was the visitors who proved to be lacklustre with their batsmen surrendering meekly.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) witnessed the second consecutive batting capitulation as the Royals gave away the strong start provided by Buttler and Rahul Tripathi. Both of them took the attack to the opposition in the powerplay overs and Shivam Mavi was at the receiving end who was taken apart by the former for 28 runs in the over. Prior to that, Tripathi had launched Prasidh Krishna into the stands and had churned out 18 runs as the Royals reached 50 in the fourth over itself.

However, the introduction of Andre Russell reaped an immediate reward for the home side as he sent back the dangerous Tripathi and the run-scoring slowed down dramatically. Kuldeep Yadav was brought into the attack and he changed the complexion of the game totally with his spell. he spun the web around the batsmen as the first casualty was the skipper Ajinkya Rahane. Though the next wicket was a huge one which dented the hopes of the batting side posting a daunting total.

Jos Buttler tried to hit a reverse sweep off a faster delivery from the Chinaman and ended up lobbing it to the short third man. Kuldeep wreaked havoc then in the camp of the Royals by scalping Stuart Binny and Ben Stokes with Shivam Mavi sending back Krishnappa Gowtham with a well-directed bouncer. The visitors slipped from being 63/0 at one stage to 107/7 in the 14th over as the possibility of them getting bowled out under 20 overs loomed large.

Despite Jaydev Unadkat showing his batting prowess, he didn’t get any support from the other end. He scored a valuable 26 runs off 18 deliveries even as Rajasthan were bundled out for 142 runs in 19 overs.

Here’s how Twitterati reacted during the course of the innings: