Big picture

Before IPL 2019, not many would have pointed at the return fixture between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals being the match they most looked forward to watching. In the post-mankad world though, this is going to be a game where non-strikers will be watched as closely as batsmen and bowlers. Under particular scrutiny will be the two protagonists of the drama that kicked off these two teams' IPL 2019 - R Ashwin and Jos Buttler. Will the Kings XI captain feel any additional pressure, knowing that there might be an extra edge to this contest? Will Buttler come out more determined to cart the bowlers everywhere because of what he has since said he perceives as a wrong decision?

Amid that subplot and drama, the bigger picture remains the race for qualification. Despite a stirring win against Mumbai Indians away in their last match, Royals' chances look a bit dim, with just two wins from seven games. They've been on the wrong end of four close results, and while different aspects of their execution went awry at various points, the common thread was their tendency to concede the big moments to the opposition. Their bowling has been led by Jofra Archer and Shreyas Gopal, but the support cast has regularly let them down, which is another area they need to work on.

Kings XI have had an up-and-down campaign so far, not stringing together enough wins to be truly dominant, but never letting too many losses pile up to lose spirit either. Ashwin has proved himself an astute captain and reliable bowler. His team though, has been a bit of a slightly off-kilter machine that is getting the job done. You know that if all the wheels align, it would go forward more easily. Lots of their wins have been scrappy affairs, and perhaps one truly dominant performance will mark a turnaround for a smoother ride ahead.

In the news

• Hardus Viljoen was unwell for Kings XI's last game, and thus missed out. That opened up a spot for Andrew Tye, but the Australia seamer conceded 40 runs in four overs without taking a wicket, so if Viljoen is fit, he could slot back in for Tye.

• Ben Stokes missed Royals' last match due to injury and they brought in Liam Livingstone. He, however, bowled only one over that went for 13 and batted at No.6, making 1 off 2 balls. If Stokes hasn't recovered, Royals could throw Ashton Turner into the mix. But, his right shoulder problem could restrict his throwing and bowling.

Previous meeting

It was both sides' opening game this season, and it's one no one is going to forget. When Ashwin ran Buttler out at the non-striker's end, it immediately became the story of the match. Steven Smith was making his return to the IPL, but he walked in when Buttler was out, and went almost unnoticed. Royals were cruising in their chase till then, but that mankad dismissal set off a chain reaction that resulted in a collapse, and a loss. Royals fumed, Ashwin stated plainly that he had acted perfectly within the law. Round 2 should be spicy.

Likely XIs

Kings XI Punjab: 1 KL Rahul, 2 Chris Gayle, 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 Sarfaraz Khan, 5 Mandeep Singh, 6 Nicholas Pooran (wk), 7 Sam Curran, 8 Hardus Viljoen, 9 R Ashwin (capt), 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 M Ashwin

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Jos Buttler, 3 Sanju Samson (wk), 4 Steven Smith, 5 Rahul Tripathi, 6 Ashton Turner, 7 Shreyas Gopal, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 K Gowtham, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Dhawal Kulkarni

Strategy punt

• Kings XI have a stark difference in run-rates when the middle overs are broken up into 7-12 and 13-18. They score slower in the second block, which is against the norm. A combination of factors contributes to this: their strong opening partnership and being conservative against spin the chief factors. With the openers often staying together till past 10 overs, their dismissals trigger a slowdown which is more pronounced against spin. To combat this, they could use someone like Nicholas Pooran as a floater, given the license to go out and hit the spinners off their lengths.

• Jos Buttler is pretty handy against all types of bowling on most days, but in IPL 2019 so far, he has been more circumspect against spinners. His strike-rate against spin is 124.7, compared to 173 against pace. He has also reversed the route he had gone down last year: this season he starts slower and picks up pace in the middle overs. His initial caution and comparative struggles against spin might tempt Ashwin to include Mujeeb Ur Rahman and use him up front.

Stats that matter

• Shreyas Gopal has the second-best average and strike-rate in wins since IPL 2018. He averages 13.6 and has a strike-rate of 13.3.

• KL Rahul needs six runs to make 1,000 for Kings XI. He has batted in only 22 innings so far, and if he gets there against Royals, he'll be the joint second-fastest to get 1,000 runs for one franchise. The quickest is Shaun Marsh. He scored 1,000 runs in 21 innings, also for Kings XI.

• Historically, both teams have been pretty evenly matched. They've won three games each in their six meetings at Mohali. Overall in the IPL, Kings XI have won eight and Royals have won ten in their 18 matches.

Mumbai Indians 172 for 5 (De Kock 40, Hardik 37*, Moeen 2-18) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 171 for 7 (De Villiers 75, Moeen 50, Malinga 4-31) by five wickets

AB de Villiers hit a 51-ball 75. Moeen Ali struck five sixes in his 50 off 32 and then took 2 for 18 from his four overs. Yuzvendra Chahal took 2 for 27 as well, but the rest of Royal Challengers Bangalore were being their typical Royal Challengers Bangalore selves. Despite having been nicely set up for the death overs by de Villiers and Moeen's 95-run third-wicket stand, Royal Challengers lost five wickets for 27 runs in the last three overs - only de Villiers managing to find the boundary through that crucial stage of the innings.

After they had hobbled to an underwhelming 171 for 7, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini and Mohammad Siraj proceeded to all concede runs at over 10 an over, giving Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock a dream start to the chase. No one in the Mumbai Indians side made a half-century, but - apart from perhaps Krunal Pandya - they all also made significant contributions. Rohit's breakneck partnership with de Kock, which propelled the team to 70 in the first 7.1 overs was a definitive period in the game, but Hardik Pandya's two sixes and two fours off Pawan Negi - who bowled the 19th over of the innings - sealed the match, from what was a slightly tricky situation.

With the ball, Lasith Malinga was modest against de Villiers, but took a stellar 4 for 31 anyway, prospering against every other batsman he bowled to. Jasprit Bumrah, meanwhile, muzzled de Villiers, but did not take any wickets, conceding just 22 runs from his four overs. Hardik's 1 for 21 from three overs also helped keep Royal Challengers quiet through the middle overs.

The de Kock-Rohit explosion

Royal Challengers' 171 was never a great score, but it seemed like a half-decent one until de Kock and Rohit made their charge. De Kock began the salvo, cracking two fours off the first over, bowled by Umesh Yadav. Umesh's next over was even more expensive - 16 runs coming from it, but none of the seamers escaped, really. The second over, bowled by Saini, went for 11, before Saini's next over - the sixth of the innings - was hit for 13. By the time Mumbai's opening pair were parted, they had made 70 off 43 balls, and put their side well on track for victory.

There would be a middle-order stutter for Mumbai, but the pace at which their openers had set off had granted the team a little room for error.

Mumbai's outstanding death bowling

Royal Challengers went into the last four overs of the innings with 136 for 2 on the board, and two set batsmen at the crease. They should absolutely murder it from there, right?

Only, they ran into two of the best death-overs operators in the game. First, Bumrah conceded only eight runs in the 17th over - once hitting de Villiers in the helmet with a bouncer. Malinga then had Moeen caught at deep square leg with a slower ball. Four balls later, Malinga had Marcus Stoinis popping a leading edge to cover. Bumrah's next over went for 10, then Malinga finished strong, having two batsmen caught off slower balls, to concede just seven off that over (there were also two byes).

Giving away just 33 from the last four overs, these two had foiled another late-overs surge.

The let-down

Thanks to a mini-collapse in the Mumbai middle order, Royal Challengers had a chance going into the final two overs, in which they had to defend 21 runs off 12 balls. Left-arm spinner Negi was thrown the ball, but although he began nicely, delivering a big-turning dot ball, Pandya's excellent hitting capabilities soon manifested. He hit the second ball of the over for a massive six, then hit two consecutive fours - one of them a bullet to the extra cover boundary.

De Villiers' IPL dominance over Malinga

No batsman seems to take Malinga apart in the IPL as much as de Villiers. Malinga has bowled 59 balls to him through the course of the league, with de Villiers plundering 109 runs off those balls. Never has Malinga dismissed de Villiers. Today, the trend did not change. De Villiers reaped 23 runs off the eight balls he faced from Malinga. Against the rest of the batsmen, meanwhile, he took four wickets, and gave away only 8 runs from 16 balls.

World Cup and Australia A squads have been named, along with the CA central contracts, as planning steps up for Australia's massive next six months. An enormous number of Australians are playing in overseas competitions in the lead up to those tours. Here the latest on how they are faring so far.

Who's in form and who's not

Glenn Maxwell isn't warming up for the World Cup in the IPL but rather in Division Two of the County Championship for Lancashire. He failed with the bat in both innings against Middlesex at Lord's but took a career-best 5 for 40 in the second innings to help Lancashire to a seven-wicket win. He claimed Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan in his five-wicket haul.

David Warner's stellar form continued with yet another half-century in the IPL against Delhi although it was his slowest of the tournament. He is the leading run-scorer in the IPL and looks set for a big World Cup campaign.

Not many of his fellow World Cup squad members are in the same kind of touch though. Steven Smith is still battling to find some rhythm. His last two IPL innings for Rajasthan have yielded just 15 and 12 and he's chewed up 37 balls in the process.

Marcus Stoinis played well in Royal Challengers Bangalore's only win of the IPL to-date last week making 28 not out from 16 balls. Two of his four boundaries came off Andrew Tye although he was also dropped off Tye's bowling. Stoinis failed to score against Mumbai on Monday. He also hasn't bowled in his last three matches after conceding 12 runs per over in his first two.

Jason Behrendorff dismissed Virat Kohli again but has been quite expensive in his last two outings after bowling well in his first three.

#Asheswatch

Peter Siddle wasn't selected in the Australia A four-day squad for the tour of England but he continued to push his case for the Ashes with a six-wicket haul for Essex against Surrey at The Oval. He ploughed through 49 overs for the match and claimed seven wickets in a draw. He also made 41 not out with the bat.

Marnus Labuschagne made a century for Glamorgan, just his fifth in first-class cricket, but it came on a Cardiff pitch that yielded six centuries and just 19 wickets in four days and was criticised by Northamptonshire.

Matt Renshaw made 48 not out in quick time to help guide Kent home in a fourth-day run chase at Edgbaston. He also made 39 in the first innings on a surface that was described as "Test quality" by Kent assistant coach Allan Donald. Renshaw again batted at No.3 in both innings.

Cameron Bancroft made scores of 33 and 22 also batting at No.3 on debut for Durham in a loss to Sussex in Division Two.

Did you see?

Chris Lynn has become a forgotten man in Australian cricket. After being groomed in the ODI team last year to potentially become a key cog in the World Cup campaign his name was nowhere to be seen when Australia listed 34 cricketers to tour England on Monday. But he continued his good form in the IPL over the weekend making a blistering 82 from 51 balls against Chennai. He struck seven fours and six sixes in his second half-century in three matches.

Injury list

Nathan Coulter-Nile was due to head to the IPL this week after a short rest at home following the UAE tour but he did not end up travelling and was replaced in RCB's squad by Dale Steyn. It was only precautionary and not due to any specific injury. He was named in the World Cup 15-man squad and is expected to be fully fit for the camp in Brisbane on May 2.

Performance of the week

Maxwell's five-wicket haul at Lord's was pretty significant. Not only did it set up a victory for Lancashire, it was the first time he had taken five wickets in a first-class match. Notably, it was also the first time he had taken four wickets in a first-class innings since his Test debut in Hyderabad in March of 2013.

Australia's head coach Justin Langer has acknowledged how tough it was on Peter Handscomb to miss out on the World Cup squad but said that it was impossible to ignore "all-time great"Steven Smith.

It was the clearest indication of where the final call on Australia's 15-man squad came with the team's recent upsurge in one-day form having created a logjam for batting positions. With Smith and David Warner both eligible to return following their bans, two of the players who featured on the successful India and Pakistan series had to be cut and they have been Handscomb and Ashton Turner.

The latter is less of a surprise after he didn't get a game against Pakistan - despite his thrilling 84 off 43 balls in Australia's record run chase in Mohali - but Handscomb had been a steady presence in the middle order since his recall, averaging 43.54 across 13 matches including a maiden hundred in that same Mohali match.

ALSO READ: The winners and losers from Australia's big day

He also brought a second-string with his wicketkeeping which could have provided back-up for Alex Carey, but in the end the selectors couldn't squeeze him in with Smith penciled in to be the middle-order accumulator, likely to bat at No. 4 behind Warner, Aaron Finch and Usman Khawaja in a yet-to-be-decided order.

Shaun Marsh could have been the other batsman with a few questions hanging over him, but he scored four centuries in eight matches - albeit all losing causes - during the period Smith and Warner were absent although he could now be shunted into the reserve spot.

"Selection is always hard, there's no doubt about that. It's the toughest part of the job. It has been for as long as I've been coaching but certainly last Tuesday was really tough," Langer told RSN radio. "Pete is terribly stiff to miss out. He's all class. I spoke to him yesterday. He's literally all class. He's another ripper."

"I can give you all the clichés, I can try to find some good reasons, but the truth is I can't tell you how close he was to being selected. He had a brilliant time of it. He played exactly the role that we talked about for the back end of the ODI summer and in India and the UAE. He did a great job. He's super fit and a terrific young bloke. He gets on and does his job. But we just felt that Steve Smith would play that same role and Steve Smith is one of the all-time greats of Australian cricket."

Smith and Warner will join up with the World Cup squad for a pre-tournament camp in Brisbane early next month which includes three non-international matches against a second-string New Zealand XI. They will be followed by two warm-up matches in England, one of which is against the hosts, before their campaign starts against Afghanistan on June 1.

"I said 12 months ago it would be great for those guys to come back into the team and they've got to work hard to get back into the team," Langer said. "We're at that point now where the team is flying, the team is going really strongly and like always they'll be part of it. They're both great players and they'll fit nicely back into the team, no doubt about that.

"It was a strong process over the last nine or 10 months particularly, just to keep an eye on how the boys were going. They went through a lot of life education I guess themselves because of what had happened."

There remain a couple of injury concerns hanging over the World Cup 15, with Mitchell Starc and Jhye Richardson having been selected subject to fitness after their pectoral and shoulder injuries receptively.

Starc appears on track with his recovery and Langer was "confident" that Richardson would be fine having not needed surgery after the dislocation he suffered in the UAE. Chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns confirmed on Monday that Josh Hazlewood, whose back injury and lack of cricket ruled him out of the initial squad, and Kane Richardson were the first-choice reserve quicks if required.

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RALEIGH, N.C. -- Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals are looking to defend the Stanley Cup. And they're not going down without a fight.

Ovechkin fought -- and knocked out -- Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov in the first period of Game 3 of the teams' first-round series on Monday night, a 5-0 win for Carolina.

Svechnikov, 19, is the youngest player in the NHL playoffs this season. A native of Barnaul, Russia, Svechnikov has said that he grew up idolizing Ovechkin, his countryman who is 14 years his elder. Svechnikov appeared to provoke Ovechkin, and the two exchanged words before dropping the gloves. Svechnikov got a few jabs in before Ovechkin dropped Svechnikov with three hard rights.

Svechnikov's head hit the ice on the way down. Svechnikov stayed down on the ice for several minutes before he was helped off by Carolina trainers. He was later ruled out by the Hurricanes to return. Both players received five minutes for fighting.

According to HockeyFights.com, Ovechkin has fought only four times in his NHL career -- and not since 2010.

Svechnikov scored two goals and tallied one assist in the Hurricanes' first two playoff games. Ovechkin won his record eighth Rocket Richard Trophy this season as the league's top goal scorer. He has one goal and two assists in the Capitals' first two games these playoffs.

The Hurricanes are hosting their first playoff game in a decade. Washington holds a 2-1 series lead after the loss.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Sacramento Kings hired Luke Walton as their coach on Monday, just days after the Los Angeles Lakers parted ways with him following three losing seasons.

Neither the Kings nor Walton waited long following changes that came just after the regular season. Sacramento fired coach Dave Joerger on Thursday following a 39-43 finish that was the best record for the franchise in 13 years. Walton was dismissed in Los Angeles a day later after failing to get the Lakers into the postseason in the first year with LeBron James.

Kings general manager Vlade Divac met with Walton on Saturday and the two sides quickly came to the agreement that was formally announced Monday.

Walton, 39, was 98-148 with Los Angeles in his first full-time head-coaching job, missing the playoffs all three seasons. He was 37-45 this season.

Walton also has experience as an assistant for Golden State, helping the Warriors win the 2015 title and then leading the team to a 39-4 record, including 24 straight wins to open the 2015-16 season, as interim coach while Steve Kerr was sidelined following complications from a pair of back surgeries.

That performance helped Walton get the job with the Lakers, but he was unable to duplicate that success with a roster with far less talent during his first two seasons and then again this year with James on board.

Walton takes over an up-and-coming team in Sacramento that features several talented young players acquired by Divac: guards De'Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield, forward Marvin Bagley III and center Willie Cauley-Stein. The Kings finished nine games out of a playoff spot after being tied for the Western Conference's eighth seed heading into the final game before the All-Star break.

Sacramento had its most wins since going 44-38 in 2005-06, during coach Rick Adelman's final season. That ended a run of eight straight playoff berths, and Sacramento hasn't been back to the postseason since for the NBA's longest active drought.

Joerger was the ninth coach since Adelman was fired in 2006 and none was able to post a winning record or earn a playoff berth. In fact, since they moved to Sacramento before the 1985-86 season, the only winning seasons for the Kings came in Adelman's eight years at the helm, highlighted by a trip to the Western Conference finals in 2002.

Divac is now counting on Walton being the one who can get the team back to the level it reached under Adelman, when the Kings were a contender for several years and played an entertaining brand of basketball.

Duke freshman Zion Williamson, the consensus player of the year, made it official Monday, declaring his eligibility for the NBA draft.

Williamson, whom ESPN ranks as the No. 1 prospect in the June draft, made his announcement on Instagram, saying it had been the "best year" of his life and thanking those who helped make his dream a reality.

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?Thank you Duke?#thebrotherhood

A post shared by Zion Williamson (@zionlw10) on Apr 15, 2019 at 2:43pm PDT

The 6-foot-7, 285-pound Williamson captivated all of college basketball with his freakish, once-in-a-generation athleticism, his energy at both ends of the floor and his omnipresent charisma.

Williamson, 18, averaged 22.6 points and 8.9 rebounds per game while ranking second nationally by shooting 68 percent. He won the Wooden Award and the Naismith Award and was named player of the year by the Associated Press and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

He became the face of college basketball this season, routinely coming up with at least one highlight-reel play or show-stopping dunk per game.

On May 14, the NBA will hold its lottery to determine which team has the right to draft Williamson. New York, Phoenix and Cleveland hold the best odds, followed by Chicago and Atlanta.

Williamson's decision to turn pro came as no surprise. He spent the season greeting NBA chatter with a playful wink and a knowing nod.

He said it would be "dope" to play on a hypothetical New York Knicks team with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Upon learning that LeBron James and Stephen Curry were talking about him during All-Star Weekend, he responded by saying that he is "hoping to be there competing against them next year."

During his lone college season, Williamson helped the Blue Devils earn the No. 1 ranking in the final AP Top 25 and the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Duke was knocked out by Michigan State in the East Regional final.

Now that Williamson is headed to the NBA, one key subplot to follow is which sneaker company will land his endorsement.

In one of the biggest moments of the season, Williamson blew out his left Nike shoe -- the PG 2.5, the signature shoe of Oklahoma City star Paul George -- and sprained his right knee in the opening minute of what became a lopsided home loss to rival North Carolina.

The impact was immediate: Nike's stock price took a hit the next day, and the shoe company sent a team of representatives to Duke's campus to investigate. When Williamson returned roughly three weeks later for the ACC tournament, he wore a pair of modified size-15 Nikes from Irving's signature line.

He opened in February at -2000 to be drafted No. 1 overall at DraftKings. After his decision to declare, he's now up to -5000.

Williamson joins RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish as classmates headed to the pros after one season. Point guard Tre Jones said he will return to school for his sophomore year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Clippers head Doc Rivers lost $2,000 dollars on the San Francisco streets Monday morning only to have a stranger give it back to him.

Rivers ended his pregame news conference prior to Game 2 of the Clippers' Western Conference quarterfinal against the Golden State Warriors by telling the story of a random act of kindness that left the assembled media in awe.

"Last thing," Rivers said after the questions finished. "Shout out to the San Francisco person who at the corner today, I was walking down the street -- this is a true story -- I reached in my pocket to grab my phone, unbeknownst to me I dropped about two grand on the street, kept walking, didn't know it. A guy tapped me on the back and said, 'That's your money.'"

Rivers, who grew up in Chicago and spent time playing for the New York Knicks during his 14-year playing career, couldn't believe his luck.

"I don't know a lot of places that that would happen," Rivers said. "But it happened today, so whoever that was, you could have had free tickets if you hadn't have ran away."

PHILADELPHIA -- It might have taken a game and a half, but the Philadelphia 76ers finally arrived at their first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets with a historic third quarter in Monday night's 145-123 win.

Leading by just one at the half after dropping Saturday's Game 1 at home to fall behind in the series, the Sixers outscored the Nets 51-23 in the third quarter with a dazzling display of precision on both ends.

Joel Embiid, a game-time decision because of discomfort in his left knee, got things started, going on a personal 8-0 run. Embiid's spark extended to the entire team as Philadelphia pushed the run to 21-2 in the first four minutes of the quarter. Philadelphia shot 6-for-8 (corralling the offensive rebound on both of those misses) while Brooklyn went just 1-for-8 (0-for-3 on 3-pointers) with three turnovers in that span.

The 51 points tied the Los Angeles Lakers for most points in a quarter in a playoff game by a team. The Lakers had 51 in the fourth quarter against the Detroit Pistons on March 31, 1962.

Embiid left the game in the fourth quarter after rolling his ankle when Nets forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson stepped on his foot going up for a basket near the rim. Embiid went to the bench and grabbed the ankle, wincing. He stayed on the bench and did not appear to receive treatment for it.

Entering Game 2, Sixers coach Brett Brown acknowledged how important it would be to climb back into the series.

"For sure, anxiety and urgency gets expedited when you lose at home in Game 1," Brown said. "And because we've all kind of been doing this awhile, you learn. And you try to avoid this in a regular season, where the highs and lows aren't as dramatic. In the playoffs, it's hard to avoid that. Like, even as sane as I try to be and preach about psychological stability and a balance, you're mindful.

"Like, tonight is a really big game. And so you can't deny that. And so be it. That's what you coach and you play for, and there's nothing like the NBA playoffs. ... So, we feel it. We feel it, and I think that's a good thing. I really do. I look forward to watching us respond to our loss at home from the other night."

Game 3 is Thursday in Brooklyn.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers ended his press conference by telling an unprompted story about how he was walking around San Francisco, reached into his pocket to grab his phone and accidentally dropped $2,000 on the ground. He didn't know he had dropped the money and started walked away, but then someone came up to him and told him, "That's your money." Said Rivers: "I don’t know a lot of places that that would happen, but it happened today. So whoever that was, you could’ve had free tickets if you hadn’t run away.”