Abu Dhabi witnessed the most dramatic finish of IPL 7 on Tuesday when neither the customary 40 overs nor the Super Over could decide the winner between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders, and in the end it was by virtue of a higher boundary count that Rajasthan were declared the winners.
At the end of 40 overs, both teams were locked at the score of 152, which pushed the match into a Super Over. But even that couldn't determine the winner with both Rajasthan and Kolkata scoring 11 runs each.
As per the tournament rules, boundary count was taken for each team during their innings of 20 overs, which settled the issue in Rajasthan's favour.
Rahane's innings had six boundaries and a six. The manner in which he paced the innings was praiseworthy. When Watson and before that Samson were going after the bowlers, he dropped anchor getting those singles along with odd boundaries as Royals reached 150 because of the Mumbai man.
Kolkata then were guided by skipper Gautam Gambhir's return-to-form 45 and late-order flourish by Suryakumar Yadav (31 off 19) and Shakib Al Hasan (29 off 18) to match Rajasthan's total with a couple off the last ball of the match.
The Super Over saw KKR scoring 11 runs with Shakib, Yadav and Manish Pandey being the three batsmen coming out to score the runs. Rajasthan then decided to chase with skipper Shane Watson and Steve Smith. They couldn't get the big shots going and were in a spot of bother needing three to win off the last ball; however, the duo held their nerves to score a couple off the final delivery to level the scores and win on boundary count.
Having set a target of 153 in 20 overs for KKR, the Royals bowlers kept their calm at the death as they restricted Gautam Gambhir's men to 152 for eight in 20 overs.
This was after a splendid penultimate over bowled by 'birthday boy' Faulkner (3 for 11 in 2 overs) in which he got the wickets of Suryakumar Yadav (31), Robin Uthappa (0) and R Vinay Kumar (0) when they needed 16 off the last two.
Suryakumar swept Watson for a six to signal his intent of chasing down tthe target and it was followed with a heave that went for boundary through third man region as he got equation down to 28 from three overs.
Shakib al Hasan then came to his own as he struck successive boundaries off Kane Richardson as KKR inched towards the target. Surya's cameo of 31 from 19 balls ended as he was comfortably pouched by Smith off Faulkner.
Faulkner then bowled Robin Uthappa, who was shuffling across the crease to expose his leg-stump and got Vinay Kumar (0) off the very next ball as four runs came off the 19th over.
Manvinder Bisla (3), playing his first match, was searching for the swinging deliveries. His ordeal ended when Richardson got one to cut back and the batsman played hard at it only to offer a catch to Karun Nair at first slip.
Jacques Kallis got a reprieve on 1 when he was caught behind off Shane Watson but it was adjudged a no-ball as the bowler was found overstepping.
However Kallis in his bid to prop up the rate was holed out in the deep off leggie Pravin Tambe with Steve Smith taking a well judged running catch.
Manish Pandey (19) had a nice little partnership with Gambhir but couldn't capitalise. After hitting Tambe for a six and boundary, he was done in by a flipper as he was struck on the pads rooted to his creas
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks to give u valuable feedback