As it happened - Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, IPL 2022

Odean Smith and Shahrukh Khan finish it off with an entire over to spare. The pair has put on an unbroken 52 off a mere 25 balls to help Kings hunt down 206.

The plan from both Harshal and Siraj was to bowl full and wide, challenging Odean Smith to reach out. Harshal drew a sliced hit from Smith, but Rawat, who had pulled off a sharp catch to dimiss Livingstone, drops a more straightforward catch to reprieve Smith on 1.

Smith has now muscled his way to 25 off eight balls. He goes 6,4,6 against Siraj in the 18th. Game over for RCB?

After starting brightly on his Punjab Kings debut, pumping Hasaranga and Akash Deep for sixes down the ground, Livingstone holes out to Anuj Rawat at sweeper cover. M Shahrukh Khan is strong against pace, but tackling spin is his weaker suit. RCB perhaps noted that and match him up with the legspin of Hasaranga. He gives up just six runs off his last over, ending with 4-0-40-1. Kings need 44 off 24 balls, with five wickets in hand. Harshal will bowl two of those overs at the death. Willey or Akash Deep will have to bowl one.

Dhawan was in excellent touch, using the pace and bounce of Willey and Akash Deep to his advantage. He took 30 off just 13 balls from them. He often shuffled across the stumps to access the areas behind square. After conceding 11 runs in his first over, Harshal comes back with a trademark slower delivery from round the wicket, having Dhawan chipping a catch to cover for 43 off 29 balls

Both Punjab Kings and RCB were involved in a furious bidding war for the legspin-bowling allrounder at the auction earlier this year. Eventually, it was RCB who got him for INR 10.75 crore. Du Plessis brings him on after the powerplay and he responds with a wicket first ball although it's a long-hop. Hasaranga can't land this wrong'un on the right length, but gets the right result for RCB. Agarwal drags it to square leg. Next up: Hasaranga vs his SL team-mate Rajapaksa. Galle Gladiators' captain vs Jaffa Kings' premier spinner in the IPL. This should be fun. Just four runs off Hasaranga's first over for the wicket of Agarwal

Willey and Siraj found some swing in the early exchanges, but Agarwal and Dhawan have since got on top of RCB's attack. Agarwal shows attacking intent, regularly hitting over the top.

When Siraj erred too full, Agarwal pumped it over long-off for six. Siraj then shortened his length, but it wasn't quite short enough to test Agarwal. The batter picked it off his hips and pulled a four over square leg.

Dhawan now gets into the act, pushing his new team past fifty within five overs. In the next over, he lines up Shahbaz Ahmed, the left-arm fingerspinner, and thumps it over the bowler's head. Punjab Kings are 63 for 0 in the powerplay. They have more firepower in the form of Livingstone, Shahrukh and Odean. This chase is on

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The wicket of Faf du Plessis provides only momentary relief as Dinesh Karthik follows it up with 32 off 14 to give RCB just the finish they needed. The last 11 overs have gone for 148. Kohli hardly got any strike in the end, and ends up with 41 off 29. Karthik was just a shuffling nightmare for the death bowlers, moving around in the crease, scoring all around the field and delaying his bat swing for the slower balls expertly. Odean Smith had an ordinary debut, going for 52 in four overs, taken apart by excellent players of high pace. It is a good batting strip, mind, so it is not all over here. Plus watch out for the dew.

Shahrukh Khan takes a much more difficult catch from Faf dun Plessis after he dropped him when he was just seven. Du Plessis is gone for 88 off 57, having scored 71 off the last 27 balls he faced. A lot of his six-hitting happened down the ground, which shows in 42 runs in the arc between long-off and long-on. RCB 168 for 1 in 17.1.

Faf du Plessis shows all his run-scoring experience to turn it around from around the 11th over, going from 17 off 30 to 65 off 45. And it's not just boundary-hitting but quite a few couples. And RCB, for a change, are going both barrels with Kohli showing impressive intent against spin. This is RCB like we haven't seen them in a long time. At 136 for 1 in 14 overs, this is what the last five overs look like.

Just after the strategic timeout, Kohli hits Harpreet Brar for a six over long-on. That is an interesting change because he practically went the whole second leg of the last IPL without attempting a boundary off spin in the middle overs. RCB 70 for 1 in 10 overs. Du Plessis still 17 off 30.

Is it a case of new team, same old intent for RCB? Three overs of spin post Powerplay, and there have been only two attempts to hit a boundary, both by Anuj Rawat. At 57 for 0 in nine overs, you wonder if du Plessis and Kohli are a good pairing? Who will take a chance here and free up the other?

On his PBKS debut, Rahul Chahar gets a wicket in his first over, Anuj Rawat bowled by a full quick delivery on the slog sweep. However, one thing PBKS will be a little displeased with is that they have conceded 16 extras in a score of 50 for 1 in seven overs.

They get bat on ball only once in the second over, bowled by Arshdeep Singh, but they still get 11 runs off it. Five wides, four leg-byes, one leg-bye, one wide. The good thing for Arshdeep was he was getting swing, but he also surprised du Plessis with the one that left him. RCB 12 for 0 in two overs.

Also Sampath Bandarupalli tells me that is the highest number of runs in an over without even one of them coming off the bat. The rider here is, matches that we have ball-by-ball scoring for.

The first skirmish of the match is between Sandeep Sharma, formerly of SRH, and Faf du Plessis. Sandeep bowls predominantly inswingers with no slip, and draws four dots before conceding a single. Anuj Rawat is the opening partner; his T20 strike rate: 120

Mayank Agarwal has won his first toss as an IPL captain, and if there is dew in Mumbai, there is likely to be dew in Navi Mumbai. Punjab Kings will be bowling first against Royal Challengers Bangalore. There is a lot of anticipation around the power-packed team that PBKS put together at the auction. Also of interest is RCB under new leadership, and Virat Kohli playing without the arm band.

Punjab Kings: M Agarwal (c), S Dhawan, L Livingstone, B Rajapaksa (wk), O Smith, S Khan, R Bawa, A Singh, H Brar, S Sharma, R Chahar

RCB: F Du Plessis (c), A Rawat, D Karthik (wk), S Rutherford, V Kohli, D Willey, W Hasaranga, S Ahamad, H Patel, M Siraj, A Deep