Buttler ton trumps Narine masterclass as Rajasthan pull off heist against Kolkata

Jos Buttler played one of the best-ever knocks in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to help Rajasthan Royals to the joint-highest run chase in the tournament and beat Kolkata Knight Riders by two wickets in a last-ball finish. 

Kolkata Knight Riders managed to bring Rajasthan Royals down to their last two wickets but Jos Buttler has almost single-handedly put them under pressure in the death overs. 

The England captain started cramping up in the last over and while he hit a six off the first ball, he then had to turn down runs off the next four balls, this bringing the equation down to RR needing three runs to win off the last two balls.

Buttler then hobbled two runs off the second last ball of the match and took a single off the last and thus took RR to a record-equalling chase. Buttler finished unbeaten on 107 off 60 balls and RR have equalled their own record for highest successful run chase.

Earlier, Sunil Narine equalled the record for the fastest IPL century for Kolkata Knight Riders as he took the Rajasthan Royals bowlers, particularly the much-vaunted spin duo Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin, to the cleaners. 

He got to his century in 49 balls, his first ton in any kind of senior cricket. Narine eventually fell to Trent Boult in the 18th over, having smashed 109 in 56 balls. 

KKR were put to bat first with RR captain Sanju Samson winning the toss and choosing to field. RR's much vaunted bowling attack managed to keep KKR's dangerous opening pair of Phil Salt and Sunil Narine down. 

Salt eventually fell in the fourth over due to a stunning catch from Avesh Khan off his own bowling. Narine then managed to make some amends in the remaining two overs and guided KKR to a score of 56/1 in the powerplay. 

Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi then took on Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal and RR ended up soaring past 100 in the first 10 overs.