Sanju Samson led from the front with an unbeaten 82 from 52 balls as Rajasthan Royals opened their IPL campaign with a hard-earned 20-run victory over Lucknow Super Giants in Jaipur.

After winning the toss for his team, Samson’s knock was the mainstay of Royals’ imposing 193 for 4, and a tight contest hadn’t seemed remotely likely when Trent Boult and Nandre Burger reduced LSG to 11 for 3 in the first four overs of their reply.

However, KL Rahul – on his return from injury – teamed up with Nicholas Pooran to take the chase deep in a fifth-wicket stand of 85 from 52 balls that ended from the first ball of the 17th over, as Sandeep Sharma popped up with a priceless spell of death bowling that left LSG with too much to do.

With 38 still needed from 12 balls, Sandeep’s penultimate over was arguably even more important, as he limited the hard-swinging Pooran to just a brace of boundaries in an 11-run over, allowing Avesh Khan to close out the contest with ease. Pooran finished unbeaten on 64 from 41 balls.

Samson certainly knows how to launch an IPL campaign in style. For the fifth consecutive IPL campaign, dating back to 2020, he opened Royals’ account with a half-century, this time in an innings featuring three fours and six sixes, the best of which – from the penultimate ball of the innings – was a formidable inside-out drill over extra cover from Mohsin Khan.

The bulk of Samson’s work was done in the course of a 93-run stand with Riyan Parag that spanned 62 balls and bridged a potentially tricky period at the end of the powerplay, in which Jos Buttler’s streaky 11 from nine balls, and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s more focussed cameo of 24 from 12, had telegraphed a potentially tricky pitch for comfortable strokeplay.

Certainly, LSG’s spinners found some purchase on the cracked, dry surface. Krunal Pandya, on his 33rd birthday, wheeled through his four boundary-less overs for 19, and could have dismissed Parag for a golden duck when he induced a leading edge back down the pitch, only for Samson at the non-striker’s end to get in the way, completely inadvertently, as he stood his ground with the ball lobbing towards his helmet.

Both men, however, stepped up their intensity after the strategic time-out, when the extra pace of Yash Thakur entered the fray. Three sixes poured forth in a 21-run over, including back-to-back pulls from Samson off undercooked bouncers, and after bringing up Royals’ 100 with another six off Ravi Bishnoi in the 11th over, Samson marched onto his fifty from 33 balls – by which stage Parag should have been removed for 29, only for Mohsin at square leg to make a hash of a top-edged sweep.

Boult and first-over wickets are a staple of the IPL experience. This time, it was Quinton de Kock in his sights at the top of the powerplay, his 24th such victim – second only to Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 27 – and it set in motion a catastrophic top-order implosion for LSG.

De Kock’s only scoring shot was a classy punch down the ground to a full-length outswinger, but when Boult fired one into his legs in the same over, he lured a loose flick in the air to Burger at backward fine leg.

Two balls into his second, Boult struck again, delivering a merciless one-two to Devdutt Padikkal, to ensure his reunion with his former Royals team-mates was a miserable one. A sharp bouncer pinged Padikkal’s helmet and sent his neck-guard spinning; Boult’s follow-up skidded through low and pegged back his middle and leg stumps as he flapped loosely across the line from deep in the crease.

And LSG reached their nadir one ball into the fourth over, as Burger – the most literal impact sub imaginable – fired down a 147kph delivery that Ayush Badoni could only spoon to Buttler at mid-off. At 11 for 3, the fightback would have to be a remarkable one.

It’s a tricky time for Rahul across formats. In the absence of Virat Kohli, he had looked set to be the wise old head in India’s Test team, until his untimely injury against England opened the door for the same generation of young guns who are pushing him to the fringes in the white-ball set-up too.

And so, his innings of 58 from 44 balls was an important reminder of his enduring class, albeit his dismissal at the start of the 17th over, caught at deep cover moments after the strategic time-out, effectively spelt the end of LSG’s challenge, with first Marcus Stoinis and then Pandya unable to find their timing from the get-go. The fact that he took the gloves, ahead of both Quinton de Kock and Pooran, was arguably a sign of his desire to remind the India selectors of his enduring versatility.

Either way, while it lasted, Rahul’s knock provided, first, the stability his team so desperately needed, and latterly the power to stay in touch with a run rate that was pushing two a ball by the tenth over. His own contribution at that point had been a run-a-ball 26, but in crashing the dangerous Burger for 6, 4, 4 from his next three deliveries, he rushed towards a 35-ball fifty, and signalled a charge that would not fizzle until his departure.

Deepak Hooda, LSG’s impact sub, has come and gone with a degree of purpose too, making 26 from 13 balls before taking on Yuzvendra Chahal, into the breeze, and holing out at deep midwicket. But it took Pooran’s more focussed power to truly ignite his team’s belief.

At 102 for 4 in the 12th over, Boult returned for his final over as Royals strove for the partnership-breaking wicket. Pooran was waiting to take him down in a 20-run over that finished with a low full-toss being smashed over wide long-on for six.

Sandeep, however, was still lurking up Samson’s sleeve, and his introduction proved pivotal. His first over, in the 15th of the innings, stemmed the flow of boundaries with just five singles, one of which could have been a direct-hit run-out. And when, in his second, Rahul chased his wide line to pick out Dhruv Jurel in the deep, Royals had seized back control.

Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals 193 for 4 in 20 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 24, Sanju Samson 82*, Riyan Parag 43, Dhruv Jurel 20*; Mohsin Khan 1-45, Naveen-ul-Haq 2-45, Ravi Bishnoi 1-38 ) beat Lucknow Super Giants 173 for 6 in 20 overs (Nicholas Pooran 64*, KL Rahul 58, Seepak Hooda 26,  Trent Boult 2-35, Nandre Burger 1-30, Ravichandran Ashwin 1-35, Yuzvendra Chahal 1-25, Sandeep Sharma 1-22 ) by 20 runs

(Cricinfo)