Royals hit the highs, Kolkata the lows
The Rajasthan Royals soared into record-breaking territory while the Kolkata Knight Riders effectively plunged out of the IPL tournament in front of 17 869 spectators at Kingsmead on Tuesday.
Defending champions Rajasthan have had an up and down tournament to date but they were in sublime form on Tuesday, breaking the 200 barrier for the first time in the first match of the third IPL double-header in Durban.
In the second match the Delhi Daredevils did their own kind of flying, moving to the top of the table with 10 points after comfortably beating Kolkata by nine wickets.
The Knight Riders lost their seventh match out of nine - dropping three catches along the way - and remain anchored to the bottom of the table with just three points, virtually out of range of a top four position.
It was a day when the bat generally dominated the ball on a new pitch used for Test matches that had pace and bounce.
This was especially the case when Rajasthan devoured the high-flying Kings XI Punjab with a scintillating batting performance.
Boosted by a record opening partnership of 135 between man-of-the-match Graeme Smith and Naman Ojha, the 2008 champions powered their way to 211-4.
The game was effectively over early in the second innings when Amit Singh reduced the Punjabis to 2/2 in the first over. Soon afterwards they found themselves 39/5 inside eight overs, before the crowd were entertained by a blistering 48 in 37 balls from Punjab skipper Yuvraj Singh.
It was all in a losing cause, however, as the Kings were reduced to common men as they went down to a heavy defeat by 78 runs.
Before this match, the Royals' top order, notably Smith (65 in six innings), had performed poorly. On Tuesday, however, after Yuvraj had won the toss and put them in to bat, they came good.
Both batsmen looked in complete control from the first over when Singh's experiment of using spinner Ramesh Powar to open the bowling backfired as Naman Ojha cracked him for two sixes and a four, building a powerful momentum.
Thereafter, the batsmen matched each other stroke for stroke in a clinical exhibition of ball striking, maintaining a rate of nine runs to the over. Such was their authority against some substandard bowling that they didn't appear to be taking any risks.
When Smith was finally out, stroking a full toss straight to long-on, it came as a major surprise. The South African captain's 77 came in 44 balls, and will have set him up nicely for the remainder of the tournament.
"It's about time," he remarked with a grin afterwards. "I was messing up early on and I let the guys down, so it was nice to get some runs today."
The Royals were also indebted to the impressive Ojha, who cracked five fours and five sixes in his innings, while, Ravindra Jadeja smashed 31 in 12 balls to rub in the humiliation.
Until now, the Punjabi bowlers had enjoyed a good tournament; yesterday they bowled far too many boundary balls. Yusuf Abdulla, the leading wicket-taker in the tournament, celebrated his call-up to the South African national Twenty20 squad with his worst performance of the tournament, going for 44 in his three overs, the most unflattering economy rate of the tournament.
In the late match, Morne van Wyk replaced Chris Gayle at the top of the order and duly struck an unbeaten 71 to help Kolkata to their best total of the tournament to date, 154/3.
But they were unable to maintain the tempo after a rousing start and there was always the feeling that they hadn't made enough runs to really test the Delhi batting lineup.
And so it proved as man of the match Gautam Gambhir (71 not out) and Tillakaratne Dilshan made the most of a rash of dropped catches to compile an unbeaten partnership of 97 in 73 balls, taking their team to a nine-wicket victory with an over to spare.
Scoreboards
SOUTH AFRICA
Indian Premier League
Rajasthan Royals v Kings XI Punjab
Kingsmead, Durban
RAJASTHAN
G Smith c Chawla b Powar 77
N Ojha c Katich b Chawla 68
Y Pathan c Goel b Chawla 12
R Jadeja c Jayawardene b Pathan 33
L Carseldine not out 16
A Raut not out 1
Extras 4
Total
(for 4 wickets, 20 overs) 211
Fall of Wickets:
1-135
2-153
3-164
4-203
Did not bat:
N Patel, S Warne, S Harwood, S Trivedi, Amit Singh.
Bowling:
Powar 3-0-33-1
Pathan 4-0-40-1
Sreesanth 4-0-44-0
Abdulla 3-0-44-0
Chawla 4-0-30-2
Singh 1-0-9-0
Goel 1-0-11-0.
PUNJAB
K Sangakkara st Ojah b Pathan 11
S Sohal c Warne b Amit Singh 0
K Goel c Harwood b Amit Singh 1
S Katich b Trivedi 10
M Jayawardene c Trivedi b Harwood 9
Yuvraj Singh c Harwood b Amit Singh 48
I Pathan lbw Warne1 9
P Chawla c Jadeja b Warne 6
R Powar not out 6
S Sreesanth not out 4
Extras 19
Total
(for 8 wickets, 20 overs) 133
Fall of wickets:
1-0
2-2
3-25
4-29
5-39
6-87
7-104
8-127.
Did not bat:
Y Abdulla.
Bowling:
Amit Singh 4-0-9-3
Harwood 4-0-26-1
Pathan 4-0-28-1
Trivedi 4-0-20-1
Warne 3-0-38-2
Jadeja 1-0-6-0.
Result:
Rajasthan won by 78 runs.
Delhi Daredevils v Kolkata Knight Riders
Kingsmead, Durban
KOLKATA
M van Wyk b Nehra 74
B McCullum c Nehra b Sangwan 35
B Hodge c De Villiers b Sangwan 10
M Henriques not out 30
W Saha not out 1
Extras 4
Total
(for 3 wickets, 20 overs) 154
Fall of wickets:
1-58
2-98
3-147
Did not bat:
S Ganguly, Yashpal Singh, A Agarkar, M Kartik, I Sharma, A Dinda.
Bowling:
Nannes 4-0-49-0
Nehra 4-0-23-1
Mishra 4-1-18-0
Sangwan 4-0-29-2
Bhatia 4-0-35-0.
DELHI
G Gambhir not out 71
D Warner c Henriques b Agarkar 36
T Dilshan not out 42
Extras 8
Total
(for 1 wicket, 19 overs) 157
Fall of wicket:
1-60.
Did not bat:
AB de Villiers, D Karthik, M Manhas, R Bhatia, A Mishra, P Sangwan, A Nehra, D Nannes.
Bowling:
Sharma 4-0-43-0, Dinda 2-0-17-0, Henriques 4-0-36-0, Hodge 2-0-18-0, Agarkar 3-0-24-1, Kartik 4-0-18-0.
Result:
Delhi won by 9 wickets.