Thu, 21 Apr 2011 - IP Punjab vs IP Rajasthan, IPL 2011, 23rd Match - Bulletin

Punjab humble Rajasthan in lop-sided game

The face-off between two Australian legends turned out to be a lop-sided affair as Adam Gilchrist led Punjab defeated Shane Warne’s Rajasthan by 48 runs to record their third consecutive victory this season. After displaying a poor show with bat and in the field, Rajasthan surrendered to spirited Punjab in their batting effort as well to mark their third defeat in last four games.

While Rajasthan had a listless evening at Mohali, Punjab proved to be a far better team putting an all-round performance infront of their home crowd.A dominating performance with the bat was followed by a disciplined bowling effort in contrary to Rajasthan who were poor with the ball bowling too many no-balls with two of those costing visiting team wickets of both openers who smoked them to the all parts of ground for a whirlwind start.

Chasing a mammoth target of 196, Rajasthan never looked threatening as Punjab dented them early removing four top order batsmen including dangerous Shane Watson and Ross Taylor inside fifty runs.Praveen Kumar bowled terrific first spell in which he completed his quota of four wickets to claim wickets of Asnodkar and Watson while new ball partner Ryan Harris also had a good new ball to get wicket of Rahul Dravid yorking the batsmen to have his leg-stump castled.

There was an inspirational fifth wicket partnership between two youngsters Ashok Menaria and Stuart Binny to raise some hopes in Rajasthan camp as pair put on 30-ball 50 together. With asking run rate mounting by every ball and over, youngsters were left with no option but to attack resulting dismissal of both of them. Their fall meant there was no more fight from remaining batsmen as Punjab closed on taking wickets to make sure they score a comfortable and big win.

Spinners Piyush Chawla and BA Bhat had a good day with the ball not going for many runs and sharing three wickets between two of them.Rajasthan literally lost the inside first five overs of their bowling effort as Valthaty and Gilly launched an attack on the bowlers to power their side to fifty in first three overs-fastest team fifty in the IPL history.Both the batters were given a life as they were dismissed each on no-balls and reprieve was enough for the pair to hit bowlers to all parts of the ground.

Valthaty was in his usual hitting form carted bowlers, Siddharth Trivedi in particular, to blast his way to 31-ball 46 including four boundaries and three towering sixes. He also overtook Sachin Tendulkar as the highest run-scorer this season to claim orange cap. Gilly wasn’t left to be far behind as he unleashed his trademark strokes in his 28 off only 16 deliveries.

There was no respite for Rajasthan after explosive pair was back in the dug-out as Shaun Marsh played one of the most attractive innings of the IPL to continue Punjab domination. He was all class playing some terrific straight and cover drives to reinforce the belief that there is a place for copy book style batsmen in the slam bang format as well.

His three sixes that came off one Shane Warne over enthralled home crowd as youngster was all over spin wizard as he piled up the runs at a brisk rate. He hit half a dozen boundaries in his 42 ball knock and never looked in any problem on his way to pretty 71.

Once he was gone, there was not much from Punjab batters as only 26 runs and two boundaries were scored in last five overs that limited them to under 200 score. The late stem in run flow was largely due to economical bowling spell from Shaun Tait and Watson as both had a under six per over economy and claimed three and two wickets respectively.

Trivedi had horrible figures as he went wicket less for 59 runs in his four overs.