Rajasthan Royals’ Ajit Chandila (second from right) and Brad Hodge (right) celebrate the wicket of Mumbai Indians’ Ricky Ponting yesterday. (BCCI)
Agencies/New Delhi
Rajasthan Royals produced a scintillating performance to outplay Mumbai Indians in every department of the game as they registered comprehensive 87-run victory in the IPL 6 match at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur yesterday.
Rajasthan bowlers fired in unison to help Royals restrict Mumbai to modest 92 and continue their winning run at home. James Faulkner was the pick of the bowler with three wickets while Ajit Chandila and Stuart Binny took two wickets apiece.
Dinesh Karthik tried to wage a lone battle, making 30 off 32 balls but it was not good enough to take Mumbai past Royals target. Chasing 180-run target, Mumbai Indians never recovered from their poor start as they lost wickets at regular intervals.
Stuart Binny piled misery on Mumbai as he dismissed explosive Kieron Pollard and put Rajasthan in commanding position.
Pacer Siddharth Trivedi struck to end Rohit Sharma’s dream run, who could only score 2 runs before being caught by Shane Watson at mid-wicket.
Rajasthan Royals spinner Ajit Chandila jolted Mumbai Indians chase by dismissing Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting in quick succession.
Chandila struck in the first over of the innings to dismiss Sachin cheaply. Chandila removed Ponting in his next over to leave Mumbai tottering at 10/2 in 2.5 overs.
Earlier, Ajinkya Rahane led from the front as he cracked an unbeaten 68 to help Rajasthan Royals set 180-run target for Mumbai Indians.
Brad Hodge also played a fine cameo as he remained unbeaten on 27 of 15 with the help of two sixes.
The 53-run unbeaten stand by Rahane and Hodge for the fourth wicket powered Royals to 179/3 in 20 overs.
Hodge smacked a six on the first delivery of the last over followed by three fours from Rahane’s bat as Mumbai pacer Mitchell Johnson conceded 19 runs.
Harbhajan Singh struck to give Mumbai Indians huge breakthrough as he broke the second-wicket stand between Ajinkya Rahane and Dishant Yagnik. Bowling change did the work for the visitors when Harbhajan was brought back into the attack and he dismissed Yagnik who was caught by Sachin Tendulkar at fine leg.
Rajasthan suffered another blow in quick succession when Stuart Binny got run-out. Ajinkya Rahane and Yagnik hammered flurry of boundaries to take Rajasthan Royals past 100 runs in just 11.2 overs.
Rahane and Yagnik kept the Royals free flow charge after Shane Watson’s dismissal with their 33-ball fifty stand to leave the Mumbai bowlers clueless.
After a blistering start for Rajasthan, Mumbai finally got a breakthrough when Keiron Pollard struck to dismiss Watson at the score 62.
Watson (31), in his attempt to hit Pollard’s outside off delivery, got a wicked outside edge that was taken comfortably by Mumbai wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik.