Jofra Archer struck the first ball of the second over to equal the record set by Mohammed Shami during 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 with the first delivery of the KKR innings. With this, Archer now has five wickets in the first ball of the IPL innings, matching the record set by Shami.
He had also taken wickets on the opening ball in RR’s previous two matches – against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on April 10 and Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 13 – dismissing Phil Salt and Abhishek Sharma respectively.Wickets off the first ball in an IPL innings (most):
- 5 – Muhammad Al-Shami
- 5- Jofra Archer
Earlier, after winning the toss, Rajasthan Royals chose to bat. Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine combined to take five wickets and restrict RR to 155 for nine.
He watches
RCB admits batting failure after close defeat | EPL 2026
It could have been worse for RR had KKR not conceded ground on the power play.Rajasthan got off to a strong start, reaching 63 without loss as Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored more than 10 runs against the pace attack.The game changed after the introduction of the spin. Sooryavanshi hit Narine with a six off his second ball, but Narine followed it up with a five. Chakravarthy then dismissed Sooryavanshi with his fourth ball, completing his 200th T20 wicket. The batter was caught by Ramandeep Singh at deep midwicket.Rajasthan Royals slipped from a strong position to 118 for four in 15 overs, with the run rate falling to less than eight.
