Jofra Archer equaled Mohammad Shami’s record by hitting a boundary on the first ball of the second innings. Rajasthan Royals‘IPL 2026 match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens on Sunday.Opening the bowling for Rajasthan Royals, Archer bowled KKR opener Tim Seifert for a golden duck on the first ball of KKR’s innings. With this, Archer now has five wickets off the first ball of an IPL innings, equaling Shami’s record.He also took wickets with the opening ball in RR’s previous two matches – against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on 10 April and against Sunrisers Hyderabad on 13 April – dismissing Phil Salt and Abhishek Sharma respectively.First Ball Wickets of an IPL Innings (Most):
- 5 – Muhammad Shami
- 5 – Jofra Archer
Earlier, Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to bat. Varun Chakraborty and Sunil Narine combined for five wickets to restrict RR to 155 for nine.It could have been worse for RR had KKR not conceded ground in the power play.Rajasthan got off to a strong start, reaching 63 for no loss as Yashvi Jaiswal and Vibhu Suryavanshi scored more than 10 runs per over against a pace attack.The match changed after the introduction of spin. Suryavanshi hit Narine for a six off his second ball, but Narine followed that up with a five-dot delivery. Chakraborty then dismissed Suryavanshi on his fourth ball to complete his 200th T20 wicket. The batsman was caught at deep mid-wicket by Ramandeep Singh.Rajasthan Royals slipped from a strong position to 118 for four in 15 overs, with the run rate dropping below eight.
