Rajasthan Royals 155 for 1 (Rahane 63*, Dravid 53) beat Delhi Daredevils 154 for 4 (Rohrer 64*) by nine wickets
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A stuttering top order and a lame effort with the ball consigned Delhi
Daredevils to their ninth loss in 12 matches, while Rajasthan Royals
sounded a warning with a nine-wicket thumping that embellished their
unbeaten home record, and propelled them to second place on the table.
Royals' seventh straight victory in Jaipur was founded first on robust
bowling, as Siddharth Trivedi, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny and
41-year-old debutant Pravin Tambe struck upon a collective consistency
that erased the damage done in Shaun Tait's early, wayward overs. Their
openers then flew to an unbeaten century stand in staggeringly orthodox
fashion, and ensured Daredevils' modest total would not challenge them.
Ajinkya Rahane, who opened alongside Rahul Dravid, was dropped on 4, but
did hardly a misdeed thereafter, as he finished not out on 63 from 45
balls, after he hit the winning run in the 18th over. Dravid had more of
the strike in the early overs, and though he was the slower scorer,
reached his fifty first, before departing for 53, with the match almost
secure, at 108 for 1.
It was Royals' bowling, however, that had the bigger impact on the
match, as they muzzled a seasoned Delhi Daredevils top order, despite
their strike bowler's indiscretions. Tait began the match with an 11-run
over, three wides among those runs, and his second cost 17, later in
the Powerplay. But James Faulkner and Watson had struck once each in
between those Tait overs, and that was enough to scare Mahela
Jayawardene and David Warner into relative reticence.
On a pitch so full of runs, Daredevils did not hesitate to bat first,
but the visitors were barely scoring at six an over inside the
Powerplay, and when Warner departed in the eighth over to leave his side
at 47 for 3, the run rate dipped further still. Jayawardene attempted a
measured rescue, but fell too, before he could make any meaningful
impact, and were it not for a well-paced 64 not out from Ben Rohrer,
whose recent nuptials had evidently done him good, Daredevils may not
have reached 154 for 4 on a pitch on which they should have made 180.
Royals' openers exploited Daredevils bowling, and the pair went about
playing orthodox cricket, with just the level of aggression required for
such a chase. Daredevils' seam bowlers strayed towards the pads too
often, and Dravid laced the first four of the innings through the leg
side, and continued to prosper there, throughout his innings. Rahane
began with more nerves - an inside edge past the stumps in the eighth
over in addition to the early life - but he found the going simple
enough in the end, thanks largely to the largesse of the bowlers.
Watson arrived after Dravid's fall in the 14th over and struck two
powerful fours off Umesh Yadav almost immediately, as Rahane coasted
beyond 50 at the other end. The pair blasted one six apiece in the 17th
over to take their side to the brink.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. He tweets here
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