Yuzvendra Chahal became the highest wicket-taker in IPL history (187 wickets) as Rajasthan Royals restricted Kolkata Knight Riders to a vulnerable 149-8 at the Eden Gardens here on Thursday. The veteran leg-spinner sucked the fight out of the Knights with four wickets for 25 as Nitish Rana & Co tried to recover from early blows. Among his scalps were those of Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish, who had stitched together 48 off 38 balls for the third wicket.

Sometimes, all it needs is a flash of brilliance to set the course of a match. For RR, it came early, in the third over of the KKR innings when a sprinting Shimron Hetmyer leaped and plucked the ball out of thin air and then didn’t put a foot wrong as the momentum took him running inches from the boundary cushion. What had looked like a sure six, ended up with the wicket of an in-form Jason Roy. At the time of going to press, RR were 78-1 in 6 overs. Earlier, Venkatesh made a 42-ball 57 with four sixes and two boundaries and Nitish a 17-ball 22 but they proved the only notes of resistance as the Knights never quite recovered with RR finding the spark to push the issue.