Chennai: Despite a scintillating ton from Shane Watson, Rajasthan Royals lost to Chennai Super Kings in a thriller in a massive run-fest at Chepauk, Chennai on Monday.
Rajasthan Royal started off well and it was Shane Watson who played brilliantly to get his first century as well as the first of this season of Indian Premier League. Stuart Binny played along with Watson and took the score to 185. In reply to RR’s 185; opening batsman of CSK, Mike Hussey, came up with a fantastic knock and Suresh Raina complimented him well from the other end. Mike Hussey scored 88 runs off 55 balls whereas Raina hit a terrific 51 off 35 balls.
James Faulkner did well by picking up three wickets but he couldn’t stop Dwayne Bravo from hitting that winning run for CSK and clinch the victory for Chennai.
Chasing the huge total of 186 was not an easy task but CSK kept on getting 10 runs per over to keep the asking rate under control. They lost the wicket of Murali Vijay in the third over and that brought Raina into the middle. Raina and Hussey started freeing their arms and scored a boundary or two boundaries in every over and kept on scoring the runs with good pace. They added 90 runs for the second-wicket before Raina departed for a well-deserved 51. Mike Hussey got run-out in 17th over after scoring a brilliant knock of 88 runs. But twist in the tale came in when Faulkner chipped in with three wickets, including that of Raina, MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja.
Dhoni contributed 21 runs off 15 balls and scored just one boundary. Jadeja got bowled on zero by a lethal yorker bowled by Faulkner. Dwayne Bravo kept his cool and did some sensible batting in last over to take his side to an emphatic win over Rajasthan royals. He scored 15 runs off 10 balls.
Earlier, it was Shane Watson and Ajinkya Rahane who were off to a flying start as they kept dealing in boundaries. Both were batting quite beautifully and took calculated risk which kept the scoring rate close to 10 runs per over. But Rahane got out after scoring 16 runs as he misjudged the ball from R Ashwin who disguised him well by bowling an off-spinner with much less pace.
Dishant Yagnik failed to fire as he gave an easy catch to Ashwin on his own bowling. But fall of wicket didn’t have much effect on Watson as he kept smashing the ball and reached his 50 in just 29 balls. He kept on piling up runs and went on to score an awesome century off just 60 balls.
Meanwhile, Rahul Dravid got out after scoring just six runs and it was Bravo who got his wicket. Bravo also picked up the wicket of Shane Watson. Watson got out after scoring 101 runs which were studded with six fours and six sixes.
Stuart Binny also played his part well and scored 36 runs off balls to take his team to a competitive total of 185 in 20 overs for the loss of four wickets.
R Ashwin and Dwayne Bravo picked up two wickets each for Chennai super Kings.