Warne's boys come good at last

Ahmedabad: Rajasthan Royals opened their account in IPL 2010 with a clinical team performance that saw them defeat Kolkata Knight Riders by 34 runs.

Kolkata Knight Riders never appeared to be in the chase while going after target of 169. The wily campaigner that Shane Warne is, he understood the nature of the pitch and had Yusuf Pathan open the bowling for the Royals.

The KKR openers found Pathan’s slow off-spin difficult to hit out against and were bogged down from the very beginning. The wicket was the slowest of IPL 2010 and the Kolkata side could never get ahead of the curve. Pathan may have failed with the ball, but took the two vital wickets of KKR openers Brad Hodge (36) and Manoj Tiwary (11). Knight Riders’ supporters would have been hoping for a match-winning show from Sourav Ganguly, but the KKR skipper could only contribute a slow 33 runs from 27 balls.

In the ultimate analysis, it was good, disciplined bowling by the Rajasthan Royals that won them the match.

Earlier in the day, the Kolkata Knight Riders started well getting the wicket of Rajasthan Royals opener Michael Lumb off the first ball of the innings. But after that it was a tale of batsmen from the Royals’ stable settling in and then getting out.

On a slow track, proper cricketing shots are the order of the day. And Rajasthan Royals’ innings was about cricketers who played classical shots getting in and helping the team reach a decent total. Rajasthan’s total was largely due to the efforts of their in-form batsman Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and debutant Faiz Fazal.

Fazal, who plays for the Railways side in the domestic competition, went after the KKR bowling right from the start. Fazal was particularly severe on Dinda milking him for 18 runs. But Fazal (31) got out to Shane Bond just when he was looking good for a big score. Jhunjhunwala has had a good run in IPL 2010 till now and his 45 along with Australian Adam Voges’ 37 runs were instrumental in getting the Royals to 168 in their allotted 20 overs. Yusuf once again fell to a bouncer. Dinda got rid of the blaster with a short one that had him holing out to deep square leg. The slowness of the wicket can be gauged from the fact that only two sixes were hit in the Royals’ innings.

With this win, Rajasthan Royals opened their account in IPL 2010 with two points.