Rajasthan knocked out of IPL

Kolkata Knight Riders took the Rajasthan Royals out of the tournament by defeating them in a closely fought encounter by four wickets. With this win, Kolkata will a little better; having won only their third match of the tournament. Rajasthan will end the league with 13 points.
The Knight Riders won the toss and elected to field first. Brad Hodge opened the bowling for the Knight Riders, but the surprising move was out-batted by Naman Ojha who smashed the first, third and the sixth ball of the over for towering sixes! That, unfortunately was the last time the Royals had batting going their way in the entire inning.

Rob Quiney fell straightaway, while Swapnil Asnodkar’s poor running between the wickets kept haunting him, to leave his team at 28/2. Ojha had looked good till then, but the loss of two successive wickets would have pegged him back as well. And that proved to be his undoing as Charles Langeveldt – making his IPL debut this year – got him to edge one to the slips.

As if to prove that it was going to be Kolkata’s day, Ajit Agarkar’s first over had Johan Botha bowled, where as Langeveldt had this third wicket in the form of Neeraj Patel to leave the Royals at 65/1.

Nothing changed after the strategic break with Laxmi Ratan Shukla capturing the wicket of Yusuf Pathan and then Tyron Hendersen running himself out in the very next over. The eighth wicket stand between Shane Warne and Ravindra Jadeja did improve the position for the Royals, but Agarkar returned to get another one and restrict the Rajasthan team to 101/9 in the twenty overs.
If anyone thought that the Knight Riders would have it easy, they were in for a surprise, as the Knight Riders lost their first six wickets for 45! Sourav Ganguly’s bad run of form continued as he was scalped for a duck, while McCullum was claimed by the back-in-team, Amit Singh. Patel induced a catch from Yashpal Singh, while Brad Hodge’s bad day turned worse when he ran himself out in a foolish way. Soon, the fifth run-out of the game of S. Shaikh had the Knight Riders 45/6 in the 12th over.

The match seemed to have tilted in the favour of Royals at this stage, but Laxmi Ratan Shukla had other ideas. He was dropped off the bowling of Shane Warne by the wicket-keeper, but that did not deter him from going after all the spinners. Warne was swatted for a six, and Jadeja’s introduction immediately saw him being hit for a four. 10 runs came off 16th over, to bring down the target from 37 to 27 in four overs.

Just when one thought that a tight over could shift the momentum again, a six by Shukla off Botha and a four off Henderson saw the target reduce to 11 in 12. After that, it was a cakewalk for the Knight Riders, and despite having lost six games in the last over, the finished it off with three balls to spare.

Shukla was declared the Man-of-the-Match.