Kolkata Knight Riders responded with a 'horses for courses' approach on a greenish Eden Gardens surface. Shakib Al Hasan and Morne Morkel, central to their plans last season, were benched. Sunil Narine, who played a stellar role in their title-winning run in 2012 and 2014, was unavailable because of his father's demise. Did it hamper them? It didn't look like, as Andre Russell and Brad Hogg took three wickets apiece to skittle Delhi Daredevils for 98. Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir's 69-run opening partnership then set a strong platform in the chase for a nine-wicket win with 35 balls to spare.

Russell and John Hastings, taking Morkel's place, ran in hard and hit the deck harder to extract unusual bounce. Quinton de Kock, who had pulled Umesh Yadav for back-to-back boundaries, was the first to go when he skewed a catch to mid-off. Four balls later, Shreyas Iyer was trapped lbw for a duck. Mayank Agarwal and Karun Nair also exited in successive overs as Hastings capped the Powerplay with a wicket maiden. By then, Daredevils were in a familiar spot at 35 for 4.

Gambhir multiplied the efficiency of his attack by deploying two slips for most parts of the innings. He even placed himself at short leg after Russell dismantled the top order.

Pawan Negi, who was promoted to No.6, swished and missed balls. He was finally put out of his misery when Hogg had him stumped for a 19-ball 11. IPL debutant Carlos Brathwaite, who had fired West Indies to their second World T20 title last week, momentarily broke the shackles with a biff over wide long-on, but was foxed by a skiddy googly from Piyush Chawla two balls later. Sanju Samson was the eighth Daredevils batsman to be dismissed before Hastings made a reappearance to wrap up the innings.

Daredevils had slumped to their seventh sub-100 score in IPL, which also happened to be the second-lowest score in the tournament's history at Eden Gardens.

The chase was a stroll for Knight Riders, and the onset of dew only made things worse for Daredevils. Zaheer Khan, playing his first competitive game since May 2015, floated flick-me balls in the lower 120kph range to Gambhir's pads and got picked away for three fours in the second over. Uthappa moved into his shot-making stride with a brace of straight-driven fours as the hosts raced past 50 in the eighth over. Although Uthappa holed out for 35 in the tenth over against the run of play, Gambhir and Manish Pandey ensured Knight Riders enjoyed a winning start.

(espncricinfo)