Showing posts with label RR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RR. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
IPL 2018, Match 40 Kings XI Punjab vs Rajasthan Royals Match Highlights
6:32 PM
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| Rajasthan Royals keep hopes alive for Playoffs after beating Kings XI Punjab |
Rajasthan Royals kept their tournament alive with an astute defence of 158 engineered by spinners K Gowtham and Ish Sodhi, who took a combined 3 for 25 in seven overs even as KL Rahul made a skillful unbeaten 95. Only one other Kings XI Punjab batsman got into double-figures on a pitch where the only other 30-plus score came from Royals opener Jos Buttler, whose 82 was his his fifth half-century in six of his last T20 innings as opener.
Royals had elected to bat on an evening where the temperatures came close to 41 degrees Celsius, conditions that became more and more impactful through the evening and made scoring runs progressively tougher.
One of the features of Rajasthan Royals' batting this year has been a forced squeezing of regular opening batsmen into the middle order. On Tuesday, it was clear why. On dropping D'Arcy Short and Rahul Tripathi, it emerged that the best of their batting ended at No. 4 with Ben Stokes. Stuart Binny and Mahipal Lomror, the men who came in, had only played one game each before Tuesday.
When these teams last met, only two nights ago, Royals had been sitting on 81 for 2 at the halfway stage, only to finish with 152 at the smallest IPL venue. On Tuesday, the same batsmen - Buttler and Sanju Samson - had taken them to 82 for 2 in ten overs, before the same pattern unfolded.
There was, however, an attempt to bat as deep as possible. On this occasion, wary of the lack of power-hitters down the order, their third-wicket stand lasted till the 15th over. In the process, a thunderous start - where they had made 63 in the Powerplay - was undone. It was a partnership of 53 that took 48 balls, and didn't appear a valuable addition.
R Ashwin, who bowled a lot of spin in the first ten overs of Kings XI's last two games, chose to bowl mostly pace up front on this occasion. Five of the six Powerplay overs were bowled by the seamers, and the major differences in scoring rates between the early overs and the middle phase were down to this.
Buttler feasted, as he usually does, on the back-of-a-length deliveries he got early on, slapping them over the bowler and extra cover at will. He made a stunning 45 runs in the Powerplay and brought up his fifty off 27 balls; a crucial stat in retrospect, because he barely managed to go run-a-ball from that point.
Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who took three wickets off four balls in the previous game, got Samson and Buttler in consecutive overs on Tuesday. Andrew Tye took three in the last over and Royals finished with 158 for 8.
When Rahane elected to bat, it was only the fourth occasion on which a captain had done it this season. Ashwin seemed unsettled when asked to chase, saying it didn't look like a pitch that would aid the team batting second.
Both captains were right with their assessments, although it took some time before that came into evidence. The pitch didn't play a part when Chris Gayle stepped out and missed a flatter one from Gowtham that went down the leg side. It wasn't the pitch either that induced swipes across the line from both Ashwin - who came in at No. 3 - and Karun Nair, reducing Kings XI to 19 for 3.
Watch Match Highlights Here:⬇️
By the time the Powerplay was done, however, scoring became extremely difficult for Rahul and Akshdeep Nath. In the six overs immediately after the Powerplay, Sodhi bowled three and conceded only eight runs. Opting to hit a good length with a lot of flight as opposed to his usual preference of throwing in plenty of variations, the legspinner had the batsmen attempting a lot of ambitious heaves before they decided to play straight. Even then, he was practically unscoreable against. By the end of the 12th over, Nath and Manoj Tiwary were both gone and the score was 66.
Rahul brought up his fifty with a front-foot pull through midwicket in the 14th over, but in the face of a required rate that had already hit 12, neither he nor Marcus Stoinis could find a single boundary for the next three overs.
By the time Rahul had figured out a way to find the boundaries on this pitch, the chase had gotten out of hand. He hit boundaries on either side of the keeper towards the end, including two reverse-sweeps off Unadkat, and jumped from 66 to 95 in the last two overs. But the story of the night was that at the other end: the only other batsman to make double-figures for Kings XI took 16 balls to make 11.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
IPL 2018, Match 32 DD vs RR Match Preview
3:16 AM
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| Both teams looking for consistent wins to make it playoffs |
Rajasthan have been really inconsistent so far while Jofra Archer has added some stability with the ball but they are still yet to find the right combination with the bat and fire. That is the key point they have to do quickly as they are running out of time.
Rajasthan Royals are placed fifth in the table with six points from seven matches. Rahane's team has been inconsistent this season as most times a win has been followed by a loss and they will also have to find a way to stem the rot if they have to make it to the play-offs.
Their failure to chase down a target of 151-7 against Sunrisers Hyderabad saw Rajasthan Royals lose the match by 11 runs. It was despite Rahane scoring a 65 and Samson hitting a 40 as they didn’t get support from other batsman.
Rahane and Samson have been their best batsmen this season but inconsistent run of Ben Stokes and Jos Butler has affected their performance this season. A win for Royals will put them at No. 4 alongside Kolkata Knight Riders, and make them genuine contenders to make the playoffs. Needless to say, margin for error for either side is minimal.
Daredevils are only just recovering from what turned out to be a mistake: having Gautam Gambhir as captain and opening batsman. The rejigged side after his stepping down looks a bigger threat to the opposition.
Iyer and Pant have done the bulk of the scoring for Delhi, amassing 306 and 257 runs respectively so far and the onus would be on the duo to lead the batting unit on Wednesday.
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| Both teams have great batting line-ups but their big worry id their bowling |
Among the bowlers, Trent Boult has been among the wickets, claiming 11 scalps so far but he didn’t get support from the rest. It has resulted in their failure to defend totals, putting their batting under pressure.
Shankar said they are doing most things right but small mistakes have resulted in losses.
“We, as a team, are doing well but it is the small things which is changing the entire result of the game,” he said.
“We were chasing 80 from six overs or something against Chennai, we got close to the target, lost by 13 runs. We tried our best and we would look to move forward from this and look to do better and build ourself into a good team,” he said.
Probably Playing XIs
Delhi Daredevils
1 Colin Munro, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Glenn Maxwell, 6 Vijay Shankar, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Trent BoultRajasthan Royals
1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Rahul Tripathi, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (wk), 6 Mahipal Lomror, 7 K Gowtham, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Dhawal Kulkarni, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Jaydev UnadkatBoth Teams Previous Meeting
Their last meeting was the first time a side successfully defended a total this IPL. It was a rain-shortened game, and Daredevils failed to chase 71 in six overs.Teams Strategy
Royals could think of playing two legspinners: Maxwell has had his share of troubles against that variety of bowling, including against Ish Sodhi, who has dismissed him twice in 28 balls for only 31 runs.Expect Daredevils to hold back spin until they dismiss Ajinkya Rahane, whose strike rate against pace this year has been 117.2 as opposed to 143 against spin.
Important Stats
1. Avesh Khan has bowled only seven Powerplay overs so far, but he boasts a good economy rate of 7.12. Jofra Archer comes into the match with a death-overs economy rate of 4.8 in this IPL. He has bowled only four overs in the stage, but in finding a way to score runs off him lies a big challenge for Daredevils
3. Daredevils last beat Royals in 2012, and have lost to them seven times since then
4. Amit Mishra has bowled almost exclusively in the middle overs, going at an excellent economy rate of 6.7
5. Royals' specialist overseas batsmen have the worst strike rate among all teams this year: 116.4
Match Prediction
Both teams boast of a strong batting line-up but they have not delivered on a consistent basis. Considering the fact that Delhi Daredevils have more batsmen in form and will be playing at home, they will undoubtedly go into this game as favorites. But if Rajasthan's overseas players turn up this will be a high-scoring encounter that will go down to the wire. Still, home advantage and in-form players means that Daredevils will be looking favorites to get the win to get off the bottom.
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