Rajasthan Royals won their third match of the season by defeating Kings XI Punjab by six wickets. The credit for their win goes to their pace attack which was led by S Sreesanth and Siddharth Trivedi. David Hussey did well to counter the pace attack of Rajasthan Royals and scored 41 runs to take the total to 124. However Shane Watson, in the earlier part of the innings along with Ajinkya Rahane made sure that Rajasthan win the match at their home ground.
Here we bring before you hits and flops from the match.
Hits
Ajinkya Rahane: Rahane batted quite slowly but he batted till the end for RR and scored a steady 34 runs off 42 balls. Rahane was the cornerstone of Royals innings. The way he kept his cool while the wickets were tumbling made the difference.
S Sreesanth: Sreesanth bowled really well and proved his mettle by giving some early breakthroughs to his team. He got the opening pair of Adam Gilchrist and Mandeep Singh in his very first over and ended up with a bowling figure of 2/20 in his four overs.
David Hussey: Hussey played a crucial role to take his team to a total of 124 which was not even looking as a possibility in the initial stages of Punjab’s innings. He scored 41 runs off just 31 balls and smacked four fours and one six. He has been in good form this season and he continued that today.
Siddharth Trivedi: Trivedi picked up two wickets and gave away just 21 runs in his four overs. He got the crucial wicket of Mike Hussey and Gurkeerat Singh at very crucial times to restrict the Kings XI to a low total.
Shane Watson: Watson played his part really well and smacked seven boundaries in his contribution of 32 runs. He didn’t give much chance to the bowlers to dominate him and pushed them to the back foot from the very first over.
Praveen Kumar: Praveen was the real star for Kings XI Punjab as he conceded just 10 runs and got two crucial wickets of Rahul Dravid and Stuart Binny. He kept them in hunt till the last over of the match. He also played a cameo with the bat.
Flops
Stuart Binny: Binny didn’t contribute anything with the bat and departed for nil. He seems to be get carried away after his contribution in the first match. He is trying to slog every ball that is coming his way. He should bat sensibly when the ball is seaming off the pitch.
Parwinder Awana: Awana was the most expensive bowler as he gave away 35 runs in his four overs and picked up just one wicket. He should have made the better use of a bowling-friendly wicket but he failed to do so.
Adam Gilchrist: Gilchrist has turned out to be the biggest failure for Kings XI Punjab this season. He was looking quite rusty with the bat as he got out to Sreesanth in the second ball of his innings.
Manan Vohra: Vohra started off well but his weakness was revealed against strong bowling attack. His running between the wickets got him in trouble as James Faulkner ran him out in this match.
Ryan Harris: His inconsistent line and length has been the biggest worry for Kings XI. He is giving away the runs quite easily and not even scoring with the bat. Today he got smacked for five boundaries by Shane Watson and he ended up with a figure of 30/0 in his four overs.
By Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News
