New Delhi: Rajasthan Royals beat Delhi Daredevils by 7 wickets finishing 156 for 3 in a well-calculated reply to Delhi Daredevil's modest total of 152/5 in this 23rd match of IPL 7.
Here is the live cricket score.
RR began cautiously but lost opener Ajinkya Rahane for 12. RR were 24/1 in 3 overs.
Some opportune hitting by Samsohn saw Rajasthan Royals move to 71/1 in 9.4 overs.
S Samson was out for 34, stumped Dinesh Karthik and bowled Shahbaz Nadeem. RR were well on course for the next few overs, piling up 141 in the 18th over.
The DD innings:
Shane Watson-led Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to bowl first against Delhi Daredevils at DD's homeground Feroz Shah Kotla.
Openers Quinton de Kock and Murali Vijay clobbered together a respectable 22 in the first 3 overs.
Murali Vijay departed in the fifth over, caught Shane Watson and bowled James Faulkner for 13. DD were 33/1.
Kedvin Pietersen (14) was out in the 9th over, caught Steve Smith and bowled Pravin Tambe when DD were 69/2. Set batsman de Kock departed in the same over after a fiesty 43. He was caught and bowled Pravin Tambe. DD were 71/3 in 10 overs in Match 23 of the IPL.
JP Duminy and Dinesh Kartick let things go a bit with some slow batting in the following overs, taking the team total to 86 after 14 overs.
Trying to force the pace, Dinesh Kartick holed out in the boundary for 12 caught Stuart Binny bowled James Faulkner. DD were 103/4 in 15 overs.
A late flurry by JP Duminy and K Jadhav took DD t 152 in 20 overs. Modest, and given Rajasthan Royals form, doable?
Delhi Daredevils has had an inconsistent IPL 7 campaign thus far. With Pietersen missing out on first couple of games, DD managed to win 2 games out of 5. But in a last few games, some of the DD players seemed to have found their feet and skipper Pietersen would be hoping that things would turn for better.
Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, arrive in this game following two back to back wins. While they managed to hang in against Kolkata Knight Riders in the super over finish, they demolished Royal Challengers Bangalore. Shane Watson and RR management won’t be too bothered how the team wins as long as it continues to win.
Squads:
Delhi Daredevils: KP Pietersen (c), MA Agarwal, NM Coulter-Nile, Q de Kock, JP Duminy, KM Jadhav, KD Karthik†, S Kaul, Milind Kumar, Mohammed Shami, S Nadeem, JDS Neesham, WD Parnell, HS Sharath, R Sharma, LR Shukla, R Shukla, LRPL Taylor, MK Tiwary, SS Tiwary, JD Unadkat, M Vijay, J Yadav.
Rajasthan Royals: Shane Watson (capt.), Amit Mishra, Abhishek Nayar, Ajinkya Rahane, Kane Richardson, Sanju Samson, Steven Smith, Tim Southee, Pravin Tambe, Ankit Sharma, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Stuart Binny, Unmukt Chand, Kevon Cooper, Ben Cutting, James Faulkner, Brad Hodge, Deepak Hooda, Iqbal Abdulla, Dhawal Kulkarni, Vikramjeet Malik, Karun Nair, Rahul Tewatia, Dishant Yagnik.
