Shane Watson first used the uneven bounce of the Jaipur pitch to keep the Delhi Daredevils in check and then acted as if it didn’t exist to bludgeon 74 off 40 balls and maintain the Rajasthan Royals’ 100% record at home.
Shane Warne’s strategy of winning the toss, inserting the opposition in and restricting them to a total that his batsmen then chase with ease is getting predictable.
But it’s also what is keeping the Rajasthan Royals at the top of the points table, with their seventh win of the tournament coming against a side that struggled to match them on the field on Sunday night.
Though Delhi fought hard to defend their total, the match was more or less decided in the first innings when Rajasthan’s bowlers checked the run-scoring to the extent that Delhi didn’t hit a six till the 18th over.
The Rajasthan Royals bowlers lent excellent support to Shane Warne’s strategy of winning the toss and inserting the opposition as they restricted Delhi to 156 in Jaipur. It could have been a lot less but for some clean hitting by Farveez Maharoof towards the end of the innings. Delhi’s strong batting order came unstuck as the Rajasthan bowlers, backed by their fielders, bowled disciplined lines and did not give the batsmen many opportunities to get boundaries. The pitch helped as well, as the bounce was not always even.
Shane Watson was the first to inject doubt and uneasiness in to the Delhi openers’ minds when he used the short ball to repeatedly beat their bats. Gambhir leaned out to reach for one that lifted from back of a length and swished wildly in the air. Sehwag’s attempted pull off another short one from Watson narrowly missed the edge.
The two openers managed to nudge singles, run hard for twos and go for the occasional boundary but Watson had prevented them from breaking loose. Though smiling through his first spell, Watson had words with Gambhir, but it was Sehwag who fell following the chatter. He tried to cut over point but didn’t get enough elevation and was caught by Mohammad Kaif for 17. For six overs after Sehwag fell - during which period Shikhar Dhawan was run out and Gambhir bowled - Delhi did not score any boundaries.
Dimitri Mascarenhas, who went for 12 runs in his first over, came back in his second spell to get the wickets of AB de Villiers and Dinesh Karthik in the same over. He finished with figures of 4-0-29-2 in his only IPL match this season and completely justified his selection. Munaf Patel varied his length and bowled to his field to choke the runs during the middle overs. Siddharth Trivedi managed to get movement off the seam and troubled Gambhir before knocking over his off stump.
It was only in the 16th over that Delhi crossed the 100-run mark and it wasn’t till the 18th that Delhi managed their first six.
Rajasthan’s commitment to keep the runs in check was exemplified by a dive by Watson to reduce a certain four to two runs after de Villiers stroked the ball through extra cover. Watson, fielding at mid-on, ran sideways towards the ball, threw himself towards the ball and got his left hand around it just before it raced past him. Even Munaf, one of the more sluggish fielders in the Indian side, was in the thick of things, trying to throw down the stumps and diving to save runs.
The last three overs fetched a much-needed 47 runs, with Maharoof hit Warne for four sixes off Warne’s last over, to give Delhi’s bowlers something to bowl at.
Rajasthan Royals 1 Graeme Smith, 2 Yusuf Pathan, 3 Mohammad Kaif, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Niraj Patel, 6 Dimitri Mascarenhas 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shane Warne (capt), 9 Mahesh Rawat (wk), 10 Siddharth Trivedi, 11 Munaf Patel.
Delhi Daredevils 1 Virender Sehwag (capt), 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 Shikhar Dhawan, 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Amit Mishra, 8 V Yomahesh, 9 Glenn McGrath, 10 Farveez Maharoof, 11 Pradeep Sangwan.
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