Rajasthan win in a Royal Fashion against Mumbai Indians

Ever since Rahul Dravid has taken over, the air in Rajasthan seems to have a Royal flair. Dravid probably playing his last international tournament has started off in a good note as a captain, though would have liked a better personal contribution. As cliché as it sounds Royals have made Jaipur their fortress, the Rajput’s haven’t let an outsider sneak in. Today have successfully chased down 143 with 2 balls to spare. Thanks too a steady head innings by Samson and some easy on the eyes strokes by Watson and Binny.

140 looked a par score on a pitch that had a bit for the bowlers, green tinge allowed a bit of zip. MI had the armory of Johnson, Coulter-Nile upfront and they provided an early break though. Johnson is a superstar; he draws a lot of attention, sometimes good and sometimes bad. But today his 4 over for 38 doesn’t tell you the whole story. He needed more luck than his tattoos, when Samson wasn’t given out; the ball was heading the middle of the middle stump. He hurried the batsman with his pace movement and the edges flew to the boundary.

This is where reality struck MI, beyond them they didn’t have anyone to keep the pressure on, though R Dhawan and Pollard did their best. But a mature 18-year old came in their way. Sanju made full use of the life given, struggled initially but once he got going there wasn’t any stopping. Along with Rahane steadied the ship, played Ojha and Bhajji with ease. The pitch suited seamers and MI were short of few. They just couldn’t find a breakthrough, there were a lot of swing and miss, a lot went past the bat and some past the wicket, but nothing struck gold.

Watson carried his ODI form and got into business after Rahane departed, he took the pressure off Samson and kept the scoreboard ticking. He played a mature innings the one without mustering over mid-wicket each ball. It was as if RR batsman had cracked the Da-Vinci code to victory. Post Sanju’s 50 Binny played his majestic strokes over covers and backward point, no fuss whatsoever leaving 12 of the last 2 overs. In an anticlimax Binny finally scored the winning run by lofting over mid-on when the field was brought in to save a single. MI missed their foreign son, Malinga, who is their one stop solution in the death.

Early on Dravid used Menaria upfront along with Malik, one could see that RR did their homework; they had 6 seamers who could exploit this track. Talk about knowing your conditions, from a team that has lost its 3 front like bowlers Sree, Ankit and Ajit, the bench stepped up. Today it looked they have moved on from the fixing scandal jelled well as a unit under the leadership of Rahul.

Early in the day had Pollard not scored those vital 40, 140 would have been a dream; with opening going wrong yet again. Smith and Tendulkar duo departed soon, Karthik got a beauty from V Malik, who has impressed everyone with his seam movement. The last thing MI wanted was a run-out with Rayudu was stranded after a miss understanding with the captain. 43/4 and they were heading south, until Rohit and Pollard struck some form. Post Rohit it was all Pollard, 95 in 15th over, Pollard shifted his gears and runs began to flow, couple of nasty blows from Coulter-Nile and 140 was reached.

VS Malik was adjudged Man of the Match for his 3 for 24.