Cricket

Rajasthan sneak game away from Mumbai

In a match that went down to the last ball, the Rajasthan Royals took the game away from Mumbai Indians in the last two overs. Not only did they take the game away, they took the two crucial points which Mumbai needed to qualify in the semi-finals. Mumbai now not only need to win their game on Wednesday against the Royal Challengers, but they also want the Chennai Super Kings to lose from Hyderabad Deccan Chargers tomorrow.

The pitch showed no mercy to the batsmen today and this was clearly visible when the Mumbai openers Tendulkar and Jayasuriya were scoring at a snails pace. Their opening stand of 71 runs took virtually 11 overs - a very unusual sight for these two. Trivedi was the root cause for the initial damage of the Indians as he was responsible for the wickets of Tendulkar and Jayasuriya. Apart from these two, the Mumbai Indians’ batsmen failed miserably as Tanvir kept taking wickets one after the other. He added 4 wickets to his kitty and conceded just 27 runs in his 4 overs. However, the only bright light later in the innings was that of Takawle who scored 24 runs in 8 balls of which 25 came in the last over by Shane Watson.
The Rajasthan Royals started of on a quiet note by Akmal and Asnodkar but Akmal was soon runout when Royals were just 20. The Royals kept losing wickets regularly of Asnodkar, Pathan, Watson and Kaif courtesy Fernando and Raje until Jadeja and Patel took charge. Rajasthan seemed completely out of the game at this point as they needed 75 runs in 48 balls with no major batsmen on crease. But both these batsmen kept their cool and ran beautifully between the wickets. The boundaries only came from the last 2 overs. The last over needed the hosts to score 15 runs and Fernando was bowling. This is when Patel struck a six to release pressure. Jadeja played equally well to support Patel on the other end by rotating the strike and occasional boundaries. Rajasthan required 3 runs in the last 2 balls which they scored with the help of one wide and then two runs on account of a misfield by Fernando and misjudgement by Jayasuriya.

It was a very close match and the high level of stress showed on Sachin’s face. He did mention in the presentation ceremony that the match was 90% theirs, but they lost it due to lack of commonsense and bad bowling towards the end.
The end result, Delhi Daredevils are in the semi-finals alongwith Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings XI. Now it’s upto Chennai to either win tomorrow to reach semis or let Mumbai win their next match to reach the semis.

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Tags: akmal, asnodkar, fernando, jadeja, jayasuriya, kaif, Mumbai Indians, patel, pathan, Rajasthan Royals, raje, sachin tendulkar, shane warne, takawle, tanvir, tendulkar, watson