Live report - Varun and Salt lead KKR to second place

Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer finish it off with an unbroken stand of 57 in 43 balls. There was no real doubt over the result after Salt's initial fireworks, even if Axar Patel made things slightly interesting for a while.

Salt, meanwhile, set a KKR record during his innings of 68 off 33.

Williams gets a wicket that'll do his confidence some good. Excellent hard-length ball from over the wicket, not short enough to pull, and Rinku gets into a tangle while trying to whip it away off his hip. Leading edge sails all the way to deep third, and KKR are 100 for 3. They still need less than a run a ball, so these wickets are looking like too little, too late for Capitals at the moment, but you never know in this game, do you?

A quick one slanted in with that wide release, and there's barely any turn. Classic Axar wicket, bowls Salt as he attempts to cut one that cramps him for room. KKR are 96 for 2 in 8.1 overs, and they keep the right-left pair going with Shreyas Iyer going in at No. 4.

First ball outside the powerplay, first ball of spin, and Sunil Narine looks for the big hit with the turn and picks out deep midwicket. He goes for 15 off 10, and KKR are 79 for 1.

KKR keep the left-right pair going, pushing Rinku Singh up to No. 3. They also had the option of Venkatesh Iyer to do the same thing.

At the innings break, it felt as if Capitals had a chance with Kuldeep in their attack and this pitch giving the spinners a bit of help. Capitals, however, have bowled no spin inside the powerplay, and KKR have rushed to 79 for no loss. Phil Salt has gone past the half-century mark, doing so during an 18-run sixth over delivered by Khaleel Ahmed. Once again, too much width.

KKR need 75 off 84 balls now. Unless something utterly miraculous happens, this match is done and dusted.

Brace yourself for all the weak puns. Salt is batting on 42 off 22, Sunil Narine on 15 off 9, and KKR are 61 for no loss in five overs. The slower ball has gripped for Capitals' fast bowlers, but they've not used it very well, offering both batters room to free their arms on multiple occasions.

Don't know why I tweeted it when I could have made the same point here, but anyway, because Capitals used Kumar Kushagra as their Impact Player to try and stem their collapse, they'll only have five bowlers to defend this total.

It could be a niche, expanded version of rock-paper-scissors. The IPL version of that contest is one-way traffic so far. Lizaad Williams' first over goes for 23, with Phil Salt doing the bulk of the damage before Sunil Narine whips away a last-ball four.

And there's more Salt rubbed into Lizaad's wounds when he drops Salt off the first ball of the second over. A miscue off Khaleel Ahmed goes high in the air and Williams gets under it at mid-on only to mess up the reverse-cup finish. The ball bursts through his hands and smacks his chest.

Is 150 still a psychological milestone in the days of regular 250s? Are psychological milestones even a thing? Who knows, but Delhi Capitals have crossed that mark, and Kuldeep Yadav, who's played a strange and crucial innings - 34 off 26 with a control percentage of 41 - has taken them there.

Will it ensure this game isn't one-sided, or do Capitals have too little against a KKR line-up of immense depth? We'll know very soon.

He showed his batting chops during the Test series against England before the IPL, and now he's playing a very useful innings in the IPL. He's batting on 20 off 9, and yes, there were two edged fours to start with and there's been a near-catch at the boundary as well, but Capitals will take those runs and anything else he happens to score. They're 128 for 8 now, with four overs remaining. If they can get to 150 somehow, Kuldeep's bowling could be very, very handy on this pitch.

KKR haven't needed to use the sixth bowler, Andre Russell, today, but the presence of Russell and Narine gives them incredible depth with both bat and ball. Add the Impact Player, and you get one of the best-structured teams in this league. Angkrish Raghuvanshi has come in for Varun as their Impact sub now, which means they have eight genuine batting options plus Mitchell Starc coming in at No. 9.

Suddenly a good length is a very good length. Sharp turn on the wrong'un from Varun, and Kumar Kushagra, stretching forward to defend, inside-edges into his pad, from where the ball loops to the keeper. Capitals are 111 for 8 now.

This isn't the game we were all expecting after all those tall totals. A bit of grip in this pitch, and Capitals are collapsing. It feels like some of it is down to how hard their batters have continued to go despite all the wickets lost. Axar Patel is next, making room to try and slap Narine through cover point, and inside-edging onto his stumps. The ball straightened considerably after slanting across him from over the wicket, cramping him for room.

Capitals are 101 for 7.

Huge wicket, Tristan Stubbs caught behind, top-edging a cut off a fast legbreak. Varun has 2 for 8 in 2.1 overs now. Sunil Narine, meanwhile, has 0 for 19 in three overs.

This Eden pitch hasn't been the Eden pitch of earlier in the season. Feels like KKR asked for something with a bit more help in it for the spinners after losing that sixer-fest against Punjab Kings. And so far the pitch has really suited their two mystery spinners.

Capitals are 99 for 6, and they bring in an Impact sub to lengthen their batting. Shaw is subbed out, and Kumar Kushagra is subbed in.

Another miscue off Varun Chakravarthy - this time he was trying to slog-sweep him - and Pant goes, caught off a loopy slice in the covers. He hit Sunil Narine for a stunning six with a falling sweep early on, but he wasn't at his best thereafter. He goes for 27 off 20, and Capitals are 93 for 5 in 10.1 overs.

Rishabh Pant gets a reprieve on 18. He welcomes Varun Chakravarthy by stepping acrosa and shaping for the scoop over short fine, but he doesn't get hold of it, and sends the ball ballooning to the right of Harshit at short third. He doesn't have too much distance to cover, and he's right under the ball when it reaches him, but it plops out of his hands. Could this be a pivotal moment?

After taking punishment from Abishek Porel in his previous over, Harshit Rana comes back and gets his man. And it's no accident, because it's the result of an excellent sequence of deliveries. First, he switched to round the wicket to cramp the left-hander and deny him the room he'd gotten earlier. Then he banged in two well-directed short balls that Porel didn't get bat to. Then Porel looks to walk across his stumps and scoop Harshit fine, but he misses and is bowled by a full slower offcutter. Capitals are 68 for 4 in 6.4 overs.

Harshit Rana plays for Delhi in domestic cricket but represents Kolkata, the capital of Bengal, in the IPL. Abishek Porel does the opposite thing. Today one bowls to the other and concedes 15 in five balls, and a single to Rishabh Pant (a Delhi boy in domestic cricket as well as the IPL) off the last ball of the over.

Shai Hope came into this game on the back of a 17-ball 41 against Mumbai Indians, and he began like he was still playing that innings, hooking Arora for six off the third ball he faced. He can't do much about the next one, though, banged into a perfect length tight on off stump, pinning his feet in the crease, and then straightening to square him up and hit the top of off. Such a good ball from Arora. You could say the bouncer off the previous ball slowed his feet down, but the length of this ball was good enough to do that all by itself. Capitals are 37 for 3 in 3.3 overs.

That's Arora's seventh powerplay wicket of the season, by the way. He's joint-top of that list alongside Khaleel Ahmed and Trent Boult.

Feels like we'll see a lot of this in T20 going forward. The more aggressive the batters' intent, the likelier that we'll see death-style bowling in all phases of the innings.

Mitchell Starc has just dismissed Jake Fraser-McGurk, caught on the square-leg boundary trying to play a pick-up flick off a really full ball. It was clearly an attempted yorker, and Fraser-McGurk ended up facing five yorker attempts (two of which ended up as full-tosses) out of the seven balls he faced in total. The other two balls were hard-length balls. There was nothing in the fullish good length that bowlers usually attempt with the new ball in the attempt to find swing.

Capitals are 30 for 2 in 2.5 overs.

Prithvi Shaw was looking ominous, having hit Mitchell Starc for three fours off the first three legal balls of the match. But his innings is cut short by a strangle down the leg side off Vaibhav Arora in the second over. It wasn't given out on the field, but Shaw began walking as soon as wicketkeeper Phil Salt convinced his captain to call for a review. UltraEdge confirms there was a thin edge through. Capitals are 17 for 1 in 1.3 overs.

Rishabh Pant wanted to bat first, Shreyas Iyer (says he) wanted to bowl first. The toss wasn't really necessary, then, but Capitals have won it. Interesting that Pant suggests the pitch looks a little slow, but could skid on a bit more in the evening - wouldn't it be easier to bat second then? Or maybe I misheard.

In any case, Prithvi Shaw is back for Capitals, replacing Kumar Kushagra, while Rasikh Salam also gets into their starting XI. A couple of changes for KKR too: Mitchell Starc and Vaibhav Arora come into their XI.

Delhi Capitals: 1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Abishek Porel, 4 Shai Hope, 5 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 6 Tristan Stubbs, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Lizaad Williams, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Rasikh Dar. Bench: Mukesh Kumar, Sumit Kumar, Pravin Dubey, Kumar Kushagra, Ricky Bhui.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Venkatesh Iyer, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Vaibhav Arora, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Harshit Rana. Bench: Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz.

If this season has redefined what a good IPL total is, the redefining has begun at the start of the innings. And few have done this better than Sunil Narine and Jake Fraser-McGurk, who'll be up against each other tonight.

Here are a couple of stonking reads on this pair: Nagraj Gollapudi teases out the story behind the rebirth of Narine the T20 opener, and Sidharth Monga delves into how much of an outlier Fraser-McGurk is, even among the aggressive openers of his time.