Aussie power kept Rajasthan Royals active and kicking in IPL-V as Shane Watson and Shaun Tait drove the inaugural champion to a 7-wicket succeed over Pune Warriors on Tuesday.
Tait’s excellent bowling (3 overs for 13) confined the home team to a paltry 125 after Sourav Ganguly selected to bat, and Shane Watson rapid winning 90 made the target appear even smaller than it was. The win, achieve with 22 balls to spare, take Royals to 4th on the points table, while for Pune their 6th repeated loss meant that the climb back into last-4contention now borders on the not viable.
Such was Watson’s supremacy that he needed little help from any other batsman - the next highest score for Rjasthan Royals was 18. The Australian all-rounder revved into activity in the 3rd over of the chase, going after Murali Karthik. After clearance long-on with a brutal strike, Watson goes for a repeat and was about caught by the implausible Steven Smith at the boundary.
Smith, a genuine candidate for the best fielder in the world today, fixed the ball and realizing he was going to exceed the boundary, tossed the ball in, but failed to hurl it the necessary distance. Smith pushed the ball in again – still beyond the boundary, but with both feet off the ground – and lastly fixed it on his 3rd attempt. A 6 was declared, but full points to Smith for attempt an implausible catch at the boundary – something he’s been doing almost every bloody match.
Watson continual with the same intensity, reaching his 50 in 27 balls, and ended with 10 fours, and 4 sixes, to his name, twice the number scored by the complete Pune team. He was named Man of the match, but there was another challenger who could have justly staked his claim on that honor – Tait.Shaun Tait bowled with fire as Pune struggled after elect to bat. The home team scored just 5fours and 2 sixes to stagger to 125 – not the most ideal platform from which to arrest a 5-match losing streak. Ganguly strangely assumed opening duties next to Michael Clarke.
The 2struggled to find the boundary and had score one apiece when the Pune captain fell to a Tait bouncer that had likely been a fire in at the behest of Ganguly’s opposite number- Rahul Dravid. David experience with Ganguly mode of play resulted in the left-hander’s wicket after the former India captain had been dropped by Tait off a Watson short release in the previous over. Soon after Ganguly’s exit, Clarke was trapped in front by Stuart Binny, stingy Pune of their senior-most batsmen one ball ahead of the Power play – which restricted an unforgivable 20 dot balls.
Despite the weariness of the innings, Pune chose to promote Bengal’s Aniston Maunder over the far more aggressive Angelo Mathews and Steven Smith. Majumdar looked to break free when he tonked 2sixes off Ankeet Chavan, but soon lost his stumps to a Johan Botha yorker. Robin Uthappa carried on for a while in the same slow vein of his previous IPL-V knocks and Steven Smith too failed to take off. Pune scored at less than a run-a fall in the final 8 overs, indicative of just how fine a job Tait and Binny (3-0-12-1) had accomplished for Royals.
Man of the match:
Shane Watson
