Rajasthan Outplayed by Delhi

Posted by Aniket in IPL on 04 1st, 2010 | no responses

karthikshotddrr_big Both Delhi and Rajasthan were on winning run after a string of losses. The win-loss sequence for Delhi before yesterday’s encounter was W W L L L W W and for Rajasthan it was L L L W W W W. Many times in IPL we have seen that momentum is a key and both Delhi and Rajasthan wanted to continue their winning momentum. But there was only one winner, Daredevils outplayed Warne’s Royals in each and every department of game and jumped to second place in points tally.

Dinesh Karthik’s knock of 69 of 38 balls (6 x 4’s; 4 X 6’s) helped Daredevils to set up a stiff target of 188 runs. Delhi had a poor start to their inning and lost both Warner and Sehwag in the 3^rd over and after suicidal run out of Collingwood; they were quickly reduced to 50-3 in 5.4 overs. Sehwag and Collingwood looked good for their short innings of 19 and 16 runs but that wasn’t enough. Even Kedar Jadhav promoted ahead of Karthik could not contribute much but Gambhir (43 of 37 balls) held his end. Delhi were 70-4 in 9 overs.

In the second half of inning it was Karthik’s show. He clobbered Rajasthan bowlers for flurry of 4’s and 6’s. He was particularly severe against Shaun Tait. At one point it looked like Tait will break RP Singh’s record of conceding maximum runs in spell of four overs but he didn’t. He conceded 53 runs in 4 overs and fell short by 6 runs. Karthik was on high and even exchanged few words with Royal’s skipper Shane Warne when latter taunted him for refusing single on 4th ball of 20th over. Karthik replied with a huge six over deep square leg. Overall it was an ordinary performance from Rajasthan bowlers and extraordinary performance from Karthik. In last 8 overs Delhi managed to score 97 runs and that set up a match for them.

Royals had a poor start to chase. Maharoof struck twice in the very first over of an inning and Mishra bowled brilliantly to get rid of Ojha in 4th over. With run out of Jhunjhunwala in 5th over Rajasthan were 32-4 in 4.1 overs and were in deep trouble and only one man could have rescued them. But it wasn’t his day, after loss of Yusuf Pathan there was not much resistance from rest of line-up and eventually they lost the match by 67 runs. Mishra was pick of the bowlers with 25-3 he is now in race with Murali for purple cap.

With 3 wins from 3 games team Delhi is looking dangerous. The inclusion of all-rounders Collingwood, Maharoof, McDonald has given team Delhi a new dimension and a depth in batting line-up. Remember they have a last season’s heroes Dilshan and Ab De Villiers on bench and Derk Nannes and Vettori will add an extra strength in bowling department once they are available for selection. If Daredevils continue to perform to their potential a place in semifinals looks almost certain for them.

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