The Indian Premier League!: Match-8 RR vs KKR, Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur

MATCH-8

RR vs KKR

Venue- SAWAI MANSINGH STADIUM, JAIPUR
Match Officials- S.Asnani, S.Taufel, C.Nandan(Umpires), R.Madugalle(Refree)

Toss- KKR won the toss and chose to field first

Result- RR won by 19 runs!

Man Of The Match- SIDDHARTH TRIVEDI

Match Report-

After winning the toss and choosing to bat first on a pitch with grass topping. It was seaming wicket. For RR big man Watson was fit for this game. But he didn't last longer and went for 5(10) on B.Lee's bowling. Rahane and Dravid then steadied the innings. Dravid was again looking good, until he got out bowled by Rajat Bhatia. Stuart Binny again tried to lift the run rate up, but managed to score just 14 runs of 11 balls. Then the innings changer, Brad Hodge came in. He and Rahane kept the score board ticking for 3-4 overs. Sunil Narine struck twice in the 15th over getting rid of Rahane and Cooper. Then keeper of RR Yagnik and Hodge played superbly scoring 40 odd runs in the last 5 overs. RR managed 144 runs in 20 overs.

While chasing Gambhir started in blazing fashion. Hitting Sreesanth in 1st over for 14runs. In the third over of the innings, youngster Rahul Shukla took 2 wickets, Bisla and Kallis which were big set-backs for KKR. From other end Shaun Tait bowled 2 fiery overs. In the 7th over of innings, again two wickets failed, but this time the bowler was Siddharth Trivedi. One of those wickets was Gambhir's important wicket. In very next over Cooper got wicket of Yusuf Pathan. On the other hand Eoin Morgan was setting in slowly. Wickets were falling on the other end. He started exploding in 13th over. Along with Bhatia he scored 28 runs off 2 overs (13th and 14th). In 15th Bhatia failed to deal with the pace of Tait and got out. Morgan kept on going. He reached his 50 in just 35 balls. But soon departed, when KKR needed 23 off last 2 overs, with 2 wickets in hand. Cooper got wicket of Morgan on first ball and Mohammad Shami off last ball of 19th over and wrapped up the game!

My Views-

If you want to learn about team effort, you should have watched this match. Everyone in RR team performed today, in some or other way. Good batting, good bowling, good fielding! On other hand KKR didn't apply themselves on the wicket that didn't suit them. KKR are more effective when the pitch is slower. Long way to go for them! They have got the potential to come back on winning ways!
If we observe the points table, 3 teams who are leading are SRH,RR and KXIP! Before the start of tournament, many people didn't give them chance, but they are proving it wrong! I like the statement of Siddhu, "Prediction of IPL is that, it is absolutely UNPREDICTABLE! Long way to go though!