Match Review of Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians

Indian Premier League - Match review

Date : 29th April 2011 Match No. : 34th
Teams : Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians
Venue : Sawai Maan Singh Stadium, Jaipur
Umpires : Asad Rauf and S.Tarapore Third Umpire: S. Ravi
Toss : Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to field.

Shane Warne (c)	Davy Jacobs
Shane Watson	Sachin Tendulkar (c)
Rahul Dravid	Ambati Rayadu
Johan Botha	Rohit Sharma
Ross Taylor	Andrew Symonds
Ashok Meneria	Keiron Pollard
Ajinkya Rahane	Ali Murtaza
Dishant Yagnik	Harbhajan Singh
Amit Singh	Lasith Mallinga
Stuart Binny	R. Sathish
Siddhartha Trivedi	Munaaf Patel

The Pink city Jaipur was all thrilled not only to take on Mumbai Indians, but to cheer for our national hero none other than Sachin Tendulkar, captain of Mumbai Indians.

There are more than one ways to describe this match
Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals.

Batting legend vs bowling legend
Mumbai Indians have been the hot favorites throughout this season and they have been living up to their reputation as well. So far they have won all their league matches except one. Their fielding has been exceptional all through, it is all to do with their fielding coach Jhonty Rhodes, who has always been setting high standards in fielding.

Rajasthan Royals on the other hand has seen all ups and downs in this season so far, but had the advantage of playing at the home ground today. Out of the seven matches played they have won and lost three each and one match got washed out due to rain.

Shane Warne, the skipper won the toss and took the right call by inviting Mumbai Indians to bat first on a pitch which had something hidden for the bowlers. Looking into the cricketing history, it is seen that whenever a captain wins the toss, 90% the call is to bat first until there is something extra ordinary in the pitch for the bowlers. However in this IPL season the trend has been just the opposite.

It was a bold call to put Mumbai Indians to bat first but as anticipated by Shane Warne. His bowlers Amit Singh and Ashok Meneria did the trick and sent Davy Jacobs and Sachin Tendulkar back on the pavilion on the individual scores of 15 and 7 respectively. Though the crowd would have liked to enjoy the master blaster's batting but still cheered his dismissal as it was in the team's interest.

It completely looked like the day belonged to the spinners, when Shane Warne himself along with Johan Botha took charge to dispatch Mumbai Indians batting squad. The spinner did not allow the middle order to settle for any partnership. Ashok Meneria got Ambati Rayadu out by a fine catch on his individual score of 11 on 13 balls. Mumbai Indians were on 46 with 3 wickets down by the end of 8.4 overs, which is quite unlike Mumbai Indians performance. Rohit Sharma the hero of the previous matches in this match was expected to build the inning and recover the loss. He also could not do much in front of Shane Warne spin and was sent back to stands on 13 in 22 balls.

The strongest looking middle order with Andrew Symonds and Keiron Pollard tumbled down by Johan Botha. The scorecard of the Mumbai Indians looked horrible with not even a single player reaching the score of 20. Surprisingly there were only 2 sixes hit during the inning. All they could manage to get the score of 94 to defend after 20 overs.

Rajasthan Royals openers came out confidently as they were to chase a low total of just 94 runs. At the same time they never wanted to be complacent. So it was quite watchful start by Rahul Dravid and Shane Watson against Lasith Mallinga, the leading wicket taker of the tournament.

The openers scored just 17 runs in the first 4 overs. At this stage, Ali Murtaza a fine spinner was introduced to attack to refrain them from scoring quickly. From the other hand, Munaf Patel bowled a wicket maiden over and sent Rahul Dravid back to the pavilion giving some ray of hope to the Mumbai Indians team. It looked as if it was Johan Botha's day earlier with the ball and now with the bat. He scored 45 runs in 39 balls with 2 boundaries and 1 six. When Botha got out to Munaaf Patel, the Royals were 90/3 in 17.2 overs. He had already done the job and there were hardly any runs left to be chased. The Royals achieved their target with 11 balls to spare and 7 wickets in hand. All in all a very comfortable win for the Royals.

Though Sachin Tendulkar applied all his cricketing brains but the still the total was too small to defend.

Result: Rajasthan Royals won the match by 7 wickets.

The Awards:
Man of the match:
Johan Botha was awarded man of the match for the all round performance with bat and ball.

Maximum Sixes:
Johan Botha was awarded

Kingfisher Fair Play Award
Chennai Super Kings tops the chart

Orange Cap (The leading run scorer)
Sachin Tendulkar- Mumbai Indians

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

Question of the day: In 20-20 format are the captains finding it easy to chase than to defend?



Last Updated on 5/2/2011