Rinku Singh hits half-century to lead Kolkata Knight Riders to first win of IPL season

[p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/rajasthan-royals/S2MQPiFG/"]Rajasthan[/a] posted 155-9 as their batting faltered after 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi top-scored with 46 at [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/kolkata-knight-riders/nmRRRXaA/"]Kolkata[/a]'s Eden Gardens.[/p][p]Kolkata, who had five defeats and one point from a rained-off game coming into the match, slipped to 5-2 and 85-6 before the left-handed Rinku steered the team home with two balls to spare.[/p][p]Rinku smacked five fours and two sixes in his 34-ball knock and put on an unbeaten 76-run stand with number eight Anukul Roy, who made 29, to steer the team home.[/p][p]The left-handed Roy kept calm with his senior partner as he hit a six off Jofra Archer in the 19th over and Kolkata needed nine from the final six balls.[/p][p]Rinku, who was dropped on eight by Nandre Burger, hit two fours and a winning six as he raised his fifty to bring cheer to the dugout and home crowd.[/p][embed guid="54021f34-38f4-419e-b809-50f89a2b2445" url="https://x.com/IPL/status/2045869683497222147" social-type="twitter" /][p]England pace bowler Archer had Tim Seifert bowled for a duck on the first ball of the chase and South Africa's Burger dismissed skipper Ajinkya Rahane for nought to make it two down.[/p][p]Kolkata's big-buy Cameron Green looked fluent in his 27 off 13 balls but fell stumped off Ravi Bishnoi with wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel making a wide collection and a back flip onto the stumps.[/p][p]Wickets kept tumbling with Ravindra Jadeja claiming two but Rinku made the most of his early reprieve to get three-time champions Kolkata over the line.[/p][p]Earlier, Rajasthan started strongly with openers Yashasvi Jaiswal, who made 39, and T20 sensation Sooryavanshi, who bounced back from a golden duck in the previous game to hammer six fours and two sixes in his 28-ball knock, putting on 81 for the first wicket.[/p][p]Spinner Varun Chakravarthy took down the left-handed Sooryavanshi and returned figures of 3-14 to trigger a collapse.[/p][p]Fast bowler Kartik Tyagi took three key wickets and Sunil Narine claimed 2-26.[/p][p][b][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/cricket/kolkata-knight-riders-nmRRRXaA/rajasthan-royals-S2MQPiFG/?mid=KMuZHqyP"]Check out the scorecard here.[/a][/b][/p]