Sat, 09 Apr 2011 - IP Hyderabad vs IP Rajasthan, IPL 2011, 2nd Match - Bulletin

Botha, bowlers star in easy win

To crave out of heroes out of nowhere is what Legendary Shane Warne has been doing during his captainship of Rajasthan side. Today he did the same-promoting Johan Botha, better known for his tight off-break bowling, to number three who emerged trumps and helped his team to win their first game of the season by eight wickets in 19th over.

Botha showed his batting talent by scoring a composed undefeated 67 off just 47 runs punctuated with eight fours and a six and never did him and his team panicked during a chase of 138 runs.

After openers gave Rajasthan a steady start with little known A Paunikar hitting some crisp square drives and thumping pull shots to give a good account of himself and alongwith Rahul Dravid made sure there were no early hiccups to the chase as Sangakkara, Hyderabad skipper, made all the bowling changes to get early breakthrough.

The breakthrough came when fast bowler Dale Steyn, clearly the best bowler on the view, induced an edge off Paunikar nicely held behind by Sangakkara to give Hyderabad some hope. Dravid and both had other ideas pacing the chase with all the calm as they put on 52 runs before Dravid was castled by a well disguised slower one.

After that, it was all Rajasthan with Botha and Ross Taylor unfurling their big shots when needed the most as they 30 runs yielded from 18th and 19th over.

Ishant Sharma who bowled his first three overs with some pace, venom and bounce was taken for 15 runs by Taylor and Botha following up with another 15 from Pragyan Ojha to seal what in the turned out to be an easy victory.

Hyderabad spinners couldn’t do much on the track as they were scored off easily by Botha and company and fielding wasn’t up to the mark as well.

Earlier, Hyderabad, asked to bat first by Shane Warne, laboured to 137 runs which by no means was a good total after openers gave them a flying start with Shekhar Dhawan hitting a 15-ball 24 including two fours and a six. But once he got out, Rajasthan bowlers were very miserly and got wickets at regular intervals with Siddharth Trivedi and Shane Warne taking three and two wickets respectively.

Man of the match Trivedi was very impressive getting some bounce and bowling attacking line and length to have wickets of Sangakkara (for duck) and Chipli in his first spell to his name and came back to remover dangerous looking Daniel Christian, playing a big part in keeping Hyderabad to a low score.

Four of the Hyderabad got the starts with each passing 20-run mark but couldn’t go on to play a big innings contributing to the dismal batting performance from the side.

Warne showed again why he is the best leg spinner the game has ever soon bamboozling batsmen with his guile and flight getting two wickets including that of JP Dumminy when master beat the left hander in the flight to force him to play in the air only to be pouched in the deep.

Amit Singh who taken for plenty in his first spell came back strongly two of his three wickets in his last spell to halt Hyderabad’s late acceleration.

For Hyderabad, Dhawan with 24 runs, Jaggi 25, Christian 26 and Ravi Teja 28 were main contributors with the bat.