Royals scrape past Sunrisers in Abu Dhabi

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Cricket365
April 19, 2014

The Sunrisers Hyderabad's much-admired top order failed to do the job in their opening IPL match on Friday, and they left their bowlers with too little to defend as the Rajasthan Royals won by four wickets.

Still, it was not as easy as the Royals would have liked, chasing down the 134 to win in the final over of the game thanks to a half ton from Ajinkya Rahane and a 48 not our from Stuart Binny. They were the only Rajasthan batsmen to reach double figures.

The rOyals won the toss and chose to put the Sunrisers in to bat, taking the risk that Aaron Finch, Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner would not fire. They were correct in terms of Finch, who was removed in the first over by Dhawal Kulkarni, for two.

This left Dhawan and Warner to steady the knock, and they put on 75 runs over the next 10 overs, but only managed to hit one six between them. They were hampered by some good, controlled bowling from the Royals.

In the end, none of the Hyderabad men could score at a strike rate better than 133, with Kulkarni, Kane Richardson (who also took three catches) and Rajat Bhatia taking two wickets each. Dhawan had top-scored with 38.

The Royals would have been confident of an easy chase, but they were quickly disabused of that notion as Dale Steyn bagged Abishek Nayar in the first over, trapping him LBW. Sanju Samson and Shane Watson soon followed, both having made three.

This left Rahane and Binny to join forces and rescue the chase, and they dragged the score past 100 in the 15ht over, before Rahane was out for 59 to Amit Mishra. Binny then watched as Brad Hodge and Bhatia fell too.

Steyn bowled the penultimate over and went for nine runs, and taking Bhatia's wicket. Thus, the Royals needed eight runs off the last, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar was unable to replicate Steyn's WT20 heroics, as James Faulkner struck two quick fours to end the game.