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Match Review of Rajasthan Royals vs Pune Warriors


Indian Premier League - Match review

Date : 1st May 2011 Match No. : 38th
Teams : Rajasthan Royals vs Pune Warriors
Venue : Sawai Maan Singh Stadium, Jaipur
Umpires : Simon Toffel and S. Tarapore Third Umpire: S. Ravi
Toss : Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to field

Playing XI Rajasthan RoyalsPlaying XI Pune Warriors
Shane Warne (c)Jesse Ryder
Rahul DravidYuvraj Singh (c)
Shane WatsonManish Pandey
Johan BothaRobin Uthappa
Stuart BinnyMithun Manhas
Ashok ManeriaHarpreet Singh
Amit SinghRahul Sharma
Ross TaylorN. McCullum
Siddhartha TrivediMurali Karthik
Ajinkya Rahane Alfonso Thomas
Dishant Yagnik Jerome Taylor


It was hot and humid afternoon in the Pink City, Jaipur. Still, the heat could not keep the stars away who poured in to support the home team Rajasthan Royals.

Backed by two recent victories, the confident Rajasthan Royals were all set to take up the ordinary looking Pune Warriors. Shane Warne's army has been taking full advantage of their home conditions and defeated the Kochi Tuskers and Mumbai Indians comprehensively.

Rajasthan Royals have 9 points from eight games and are placed at number 3 on the points tally. A victory against Pune would take them to the top of the table with 11 points, just ahead of current table toppers, Mumbai Indians, who have 10 points from seven games.

The Pune Warriors on the contrary are placed second last on the points table. They have lost 5 consecutive matches and there was a need for them to play out of their skins to break Royal's winning spree. Yuvraj Singh's team though capable of destroying the bowling attack, but has not been delivering somehow. A must win for the warriors to make a comeback in the series.

The Royals skipper, Shane Warne won the toss and without any second thought elected to field. The Warriors captain, once again disappointed to loose the toss as he felt that wining the toss meant half job done.

Manish Pandey and Jesse Ryder opened the innings. As hoped, the Warriors looked good when Ryder was smashing the ball and scored 18 in just 12 balls with 3 boundaries until Botha who has been in great form with bat as well ball, bowled a top spinner to deceive Ryder and got him stumped.

Once Ryder got out, Uthappa came to bat. Uthappa made a good start and welcomed Shane Warne with two consecutive boundaries. It was a very exciting and eventful over by the Warne, where he was hit for 3 boundaries and made 3 LBW appeals, which were all turned down. 50 comes up for Warriors in the 7th over. Uthappa looked good wanted to settle some score against Warne but his plans did not last for very long. Warne finally got his man trying to hit a reverse sweep. Warriors were now 70-2 in 8.2 overs.

The Warriors lost the momentum after losing Uthapaa's wicket. Yuvraj Singh who has been languishing himself at 5th & 6th position rightly came in to bat at no. 4. The warriors have been struggling to put their batting order right. Yuvraj Singh was all set to take things further. But when things do not go your way, nothing works. Just when Yuvraj Singh could have capitalized on the good start given by the top batsmen, he had an unlucky dismissal. He got run out on a delivery which was hit back hard by Manish Pandey and the bowler just managed to touch it. Warriors now 91/3 in 12.1 overs. This seemed to be the turning point of the match. 100 came up in the 15th over.

Mithun Manhas a Delhi boy who has not been impressive in the previous games had a big task ahead to take his team to respectable total to defend. He along with Harpreet Singh built a small partnership but the need of the hour was to convert singles to boundaries. Harpreet tried to do so but got out to a fine catch by Rahane at the score of 13 in 19 balls.

There were only 2 sixes hit in the innings, both by Mithun and that too in the last over. Mithun and N. McCullum helped the Warriors reach a total of 143 by the end of 20 overs. Shane Watson and Rahul Dravid started very watchful inning against Alfonso Thomas, who has had a very impressive season so far. He did the trick and sent Watson back in the stand the at an individual score of 12 in 14 balls with one six hit. Johan Botha who has been on roll with ball and bat came into bat at number 3. Realizing that the pitch has something in it for the spinners, Rahul Sharma a fine spinner was introduced to attack. Rahul Sharma got Rahul Dravid's out on caught and bold. Johan Botha also could not do much today and fell victim to Rahul's fine spin. He got out on the individual score of 12. At this stage the Royals were 59 for the loss of 3 wickets in 10.1 overs.

To everyone's surprise Ashok Maneria was sent up the order with some hidden game plan by skipper Shane Warne. That actually did the trick and he started thrashing Pune's bowlers and hit three huge sixes. He scored quick 29 in 22 balls until he got on an absolutely blinder by Alfonso Thomas on the boundary. Royals were 4 wickets down on 92 runs in 14.1 overs.

Ross Taylor and Ajinkya Rahane realized that they have to have to do something special from here to win the match. The equation was 52 runs required of 30 balls. Nathan McCullum dropped two catches in a row of dangerous looking Ross Taylor. Ross Taylor on the other end was in a different mood just hitting every second ball for boundaries and sixes. Ajinkya Rahane was also very impressive at the crease. The courageous partnership between the two brought the equation to 6 runs of 6 balls. Ajinkya Rahane hit the boundary and won the match with 3 balls to spare. Ross Taylor scored unbeaten 47 in 35 balls with 4 boundaries and 2 sixes.

Yet another match slipped through Pune Warrior's hand due to their ordinary fielding and dropped catches.

Result: Rajasthan Royals won by 6 wickets with 3 balls to spare.

The Awards:
Man of the match: Ross Taylor for his unbeaten 47 in 35 balls.

Maximum Sixes:
Ashok Maneria for hitting 3 sixes.

Kingfisher Fair Play Award
Kochi Tuskers tops the chart & Knight Riders at the bottom.

Orange Cap (The leading run scorer)
Virat Kohli- Royal Challengers Bangalore

Purple Cap (The leading wicket taker)
Lasith Mallinga- Mumbai Indians

Question of the day:
Is winning the toss in 20-20 is like half the match won?



Last Updated on 5/2/2011





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