South Africa's Quinton de Kock struck an unbeaten 97 as holders Kolkata Knight Riders registered their first win of the IPL season with an eight-wicket hammering of Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday.
Spinners Moeen Ali and Varun Chakravarthy combined to help restrict Rajasthan to 151-9 after KKR elected to field first in Guwahati.
De Kock bossed the chase with his 61-ball innings laced with eight fours and six sixes as Kolkata achieved their target with 15 balls to spare.
He handed his team a quick start, hitting two fours but then lost opening partner Moeen, run out for five.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane fell after a brisk 18 but De Kock stood firm and along with impact substitute Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who made 22, steered the team home in an unbeaten stand of 83.
De Kock finished with a six off Jofra Archer as Kolkata bounced back from their opening loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Rajasthan suffered their second straight loss.
Earlier, Kolkata fast bowler Vaibhav Arora dismissed Sanju Samson, bowled for 13, and Chakravarthy and Moeen soon took two wickets each.
Wicketkeeper Samson is Rajasthan's regular captain but has been forced to play only as a batter in the first three matches due to an injury.
Chakravarthy, who starred in India's recent Champions Trophy triumph, got stand-in-skipper Riyan Parag out caught behind for 25.
Former England all-rounder Moeen, in for the unwell Sunil Narine, stifled the opposition with his off-spin and was rewarded with the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal for 29.
The 37-year-old and Chakravarthy both struck again as Rajasthan slipped to 82-5 in 11 overs.
Wickets kept tumbling for Rajasthan and despite wicketkeeper-batsman Dhruv Jurel's 33 and 16 from Archer, they settled for a below-par total.
Arora and fellow quick Harshit Rana also took two wickets each.
Kolkata, under Shreyas Iyer who is now Punjab Kings captain after a $3.17 million move in the auction, won their third IPL title last year.
Punjab dare to dream under Iyer
Punjab Kings' owners will feel the $3.17 million they splurged on Shreyas Iyer was money well spent after the 30-year-old demonstrated selfless leadership in Tuesday's Indian Premier League (IPL) victory against 2022 champions Gujarat Titans.
Perennial underdogs Punjab have reached the IPL final only once when they finished runners-up to Kolkata Knight Riders in 2014, and they came ninth of 10 teams last year.
Iyer guided Kolkata to their third IPL title last year but was then released by the team, opening the door for Punjab to chase the batter's signature and put him in charge of the squad.
A key member of India's victorious Champions Trophy squad, Iyer smashed an unbeaten 97 against Gujarat in Ahmedabad in a 42-ball blitz featuring nine sixes and five fours.
Despite being on the brink of his first IPL hundred, Iyer then gave batting partner Shashank Singh the green light to swing away in their final over instead of asking him to look for a single to bring his captain on strike.
Shashank smashed five fours in that 23-run final over to power Punjab to a commanding 243-5.
"I was going to ask him if I should take a single or something but he only came and told me to not worry about his hundred," said Shashank, who belted 44 not out off just 16 balls.
"It takes a lot of heart and courage to say that because obviously hundreds don't come easily in T20, especially in IPL."
Fifties by Sai Sudharshan and Jos Buttler kept Gujarat in the hunt but they could manage only 232-5 despite Sherfane Rutherford's brisk 46 at number four.
Iyer, named player of the match, said their final-over fireworks with the bat proved decisive with Punjab seamer Arshdeep Singh comfortably defending 27 runs in Gurjat's last over."Getting those extra 40 runs after the 200, we had set that as the benchmark," Iyer said. "With the dew coming in, we knew that the scenario would be changing.
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