Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 on Saturday by chasing down the given target with nine balls to spare.

Heading into the game between last season’s finalists, KKR won the toss and elected to field. Put to bat, CSK never got going with the top order especially disappointing on the night.

The first match of the 15^th edition of the blockbuster cricket league was played in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. On a night when CSK openers failed to impress, it was up the veteran M S Dhoni to once again pull the ship.

Once at 61/5, Dhoni scored an unbeaten half-century to take the team’s total to 131, which was always going to be difficult to defend. For KKR, Umesh Yadav took two wickets while both Andre Russel and Varun Chakravarthy got one each.

Chasing the lowly score, KKR were off to a good start with Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer at the crease. They were soon brought to ground with Dwayne Bravo sending Iyer back to the pavilion, having scored 16.

Rahane went on from there and scored a valuable 44 runs off 34 balls. Nitish Rana and Sam Billings put up important runs, scoring 21 and 25 respectively, while captain Shreyas Iyer remained unbeaten on 20 to take the team to victory.

For CSK, Bravo took the maximum of three wickets while Mitchell Santner got one to his name.

In a faceoff between last season’s finalists with both teams under new stewardship, it was the new KKR captain that came up trumps. CSK will play new entrants Lucknow Super Giants next while KKR will be up against Royal Challengers Bangalore.