IPL Pulse: Fast, slooooow, fast

Good morning,

A lot has changed about Kolkata in the last few days, including how they've now stormed into the Playoffs conversation with four wins on the bounce. Delhi's home season is turning into a horror show and their captain is already speaking about the next season.

Here's your Cricketlineguruji Pulse from a night where Finn Allen finally stayed beyond the Powerplay, and then went bonkers.

Last night in five lines

Pathum Nissanka gave DC another flying start with a sparkling fifty

KKR's spin trio slammed the brakes through the middle overs

DC crawled to a painfully undercooked 142/8 after losing 5 for 40 in the middle

Finn Allen smashed a maiden IPL ton off 47 balls

KKR won with 5.4 overs to spare

Oh, that happened

Finn Allen was 20 off 17 after the Powerplay and had looked oddly restrained in the first six overs by his standards. Then the legspinners arrived, and Allen treated Kuldeep Yadav and Vipraj Nigam like bowling machines. 8 of his 10 sixes came against the legspinning duo...

Pulse Awards

Finn Allen wins the poker-face award for making DC's bowlers feel at ease and in the game, before taking it all away in a matter of few hits.

Sunil Narine gets the still-doing-this-in-2026-somehow award for his four overs that cost 17 runs for one wicket.

Anukul Roy earns the side-character-steals-the-scene award for coming into a game dominated by Narine-Varun chatter and then casually dismissing Nissanka and Stubbs in the same over.

Ajinkya Rahane receives the workplace-wellness award for giving interviews that sound like a team-building seminar.

Talking point

Kuldeep's slump has become central to DC's misfortunes. He has just seven wickets in 10 games, is conceding 10.66 per over - the second-worst economy ever for a spinner bowling 25+ overs in an IPL season - and has already been hit for 29 sixes. The bigger issue is the lack of breakthroughs. Kuldeep has gone wicketless in six of his 10 outings this season, with his strike rate ballooning to 28.2 from a career T20 mark of 16.8.

The Chatter

Finn Allen admitted he was "putting too much pressure" on himself before being dropped earlier in the season. On his change in tempo against DC, he said it was "a little bit challenging at the start" with Axar Patel bowling well, before he "knuckled down", took "a bit of responsibility" and focused on getting "a win on the board".

Axar Patel felt "the spinners made quite a few mistakes" and acknowledged there is "a long journey" ahead, adding that DC would now think about "what plans we can make for next year and what approach we should take".

Venugopal Rao, DC's Director of Cricket, said the "batters need to take responsibility" and felt the "'I'll do it, rather than somebody else does it' feeling is missing".

Cameron Green said he was "100 per cent ready to bowl four overs", adding that the current balance of the side meant he hadn't needed to complete his full quota.

Stat snack

Finn Allen became only the second New Zealand batter to score an IPL hundred after Brendon McCullum.

Gossip column

Birdies say the real reason people were pulled up for vaping is because fielders are already dropping enough catches under lights this IPL season. With balls constantly flying off the middle of the bat on these flat pitches, the league apparently didn't want players blaming vape clouds next.

Tonight's watchlist

RR, who have lost 4 of their last 6 matches, take on GT in Jaipur. GT's assistant coach Parthiv Patel joked how their matches are "not high-scoring, we are dismissing teams for 150!". Is a certain Vaibhav Sooryavanshi listening?

Reckless prediction for tonight's match

Prasidh Krishna is going to see all parts of Jaipur, courtesy a 15-year-old with a half-ticket and a full swing.