Royals get off the mark in style
Rajasthan Royals completed a convincing victory over Kolkata Knight Riders to register their first win in the competition.
Shane Warne won the toss for the Royals and elected to bat first. They got off to a poor start, losing Michael Lumb on the very first ball. But Naman Ojha and Faiz Fazal put on 42 runs off just 29 balls for the second wicket, taking them to 56 for the loss of two wickets at the end of the Quick start overs. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala anchored the innings from that point with a well planned 45. The Knight Riders did an excellent job in the middle overs, hitting the right areas and picking up wickets at regular intervals. It looked like the Royals would finish with a score of about 155 but Adam Voges struck a couple of lusty blows in the last of the Extreme Performance overs, helping them finish with a very competitive 168.
The hosts carried the momentum from the first innings onto the field and started on top. They restricted the Knight Riders to just 38 runs in the Power Play overs, having picked up the wicket of Manoj Tiwary. They managed to sustain the pressure and kept the scoring down as Brad Hodge and Cheteshwar Pujara failed to break away to play the big shots. The trend continued with the Extreme Performance overs approaching as runs were becoming hard to come by, despite having wickets in hand. The asking rate went through the roof in the last couple of overs and the Knight Riders eventually finished 35 runs short of the target.
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