All-round batting effort helps Rajasthan reach 159
By Suneer Chowdhary
Jaipur: Apr 15, 2011
Kolkata Knight Riders had made two changes to their side, getting in Brett Lee and Shakib al Hasan to the playing eleven. Jaidev Unadkat and Ryan ten Doeschate missed out in the game. The Rajasthan Royals got in Shane Watson in place of Ajinkya Rahane while Nayan Doshi replaced Shaun Tait.
Batting first, it was a surprise to not see Watson walk out to bat at the opening slot. The tested pair of Amit Paunikar and Rahul Dravid were out there to open the innings. With the pitch behaving slower than the other ones in the recent past, run-scoring was difficult for the pair and it was one such attempt to clear the fence that saw the wicket of Paunikar. IPL-debutant Shakib al Hasan was the wicket-taker.
Nor did Watson walk out at three, it was Ashok Menaria. Menaria had had a good time in dealing with the Delhi left-arm spinners and it was probably this reason why he was sent – the Kolkata Knight Riders had Shakib and Iqbal Abdulla amidst their bowling.
Dravid’s time at the stay yielded 35 runs for him, but after his previous fluent knock against Delhi, there was a touch more defensiveness about him. Menaria got the acceleration going with a six off Shakib but Yusuf Pathan accounted for both the batsmen in the same over.
Dravid was bowled off a delivery that refused to come on to the bat while Menaria hit it back to the bowler. Royals 79 for 3 in the 12th over.
The two wickets got Watson and Ross Taylor to the crease and it did not take them long to get a look-in. Abdulla was able to contain them to four in the 13th but the fun began when Shakib was hit for 12 in the next. Watson, who had taken on most of the Bangladeshi bowlers in the ODI series hit Shakib for a six and repeated the dose in his next over as well before the Bangladeshi captain had his revenge. He pitched the ball outside the leg-stump and got it to spin a mile, to bowl the batsman out.
Amidst all this, Taylor had got going as well, smashing Balaji for a couple of sixes in one over and even after Watson’s dismissal he carried on hitting the way he has. 57 came off the last five overs of the innings with Taylor’s unbeaten 35 off 25 top-scoring for the side.
Gautam Gambhir rotated his bowlers around, allowing Lee only an over, Jacques Kallis another one and even after Shakib had taken that wicket, he was removed from the attack. However, the batting of Taylor and Watson ensured that the Royals had got to a competitive score.
Brief Scores: RR 159 for 4 in 20 overs (Ross Taylor 35*, Rahul Dravid 35, Ashok Menaria 27, Shane Watson 22; Yusuf Pathan 2 for 4, Shakib Al Hasan 2 for 31) vs KKR.
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
Pictures © AFP