Ahmedabad: Shane Warne’s boys were imperious tonight with a Yusuf Pathan blitz crushing Deccan Chargers in the Rajasthan Royals' fortress in Ahmedabad by eight wickets.
Pathan celebrated his inclusion in the Indian squad for the ICC World T20 Championship by decimating the Chargers. Pathan Sr. hit eight humongous sixes in his explosive stay at the crease. After having failed to truly justify the tag of being a match-winner in the previous four innings, he flexed his muscles tonight to great effect.
Unlike his innings against Mumbai Indians, when Pathan couldn’t see his team through, he stuck around till his team crossed the line. Pathan quite appropriately hit a huge six to carry Rajasthan Royals home with 4.2 overs to spare. Pathan’s whirlwind knock of 73* came off just 34 balls, clearly showing how domineering the blitz was. For lovers of statistics, the big-hitter reached his 50 off 23 balls.
There was, however, a minor hurdle in the plot. A bad call from Yusuf saw opener Michael Lumb get run-out. Lumb (45) was looking great. He had got the chase off to a great start with four boundaries off RP Singh.
Before the start of the innings, Warne had stated that Motera was Rajasthan Royals’ fortress. Tonight the Deccan Chargers failed to break into the Royals’ stronghold. The battle between the two old Australian colleagues was a one-sided affair with Warne outfoxing Adam Gilchrist in every department.
It was a complete team effort from a side that doesn’t believe in stars. The first stroke of Warne’s genius was opening the bowling with medium-pacer Sumit Narwal. Narwal induced Adam Gilchrist to mis-hit the third ball of the innings and scoop an easy catch to mid-on. The Royals could have lost the plot at this point with Herschelle Gibbs going great guns, but Warne came on and the South African couldn’t read one of his beauties and left after being stumped. Warne was at his best in this match, both as a bowler and captain.
The Chargers’ cause wasn’t helped by the three silly run-outs that saw Andrew Symonds, Chaminda Vaas and Venugopal Rao return to the pavilion. The DC innings never took off with the score at one point reading 103 for six. It was only a late flourish by Rohit Sharma that saw the team get close to 150. Sharma, though, should be thankful that he was dropped on 31 by Adam Voges.
The Royals seem to be back at their best and this win takes them to third position on the points table.
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