21 Apr 08 - Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur : Shane Warne and Shane Watson shone with ball and bat respectively to power the Rajasthan Royals to their maiden win of the IPL T20 competition. The Aussie duo of along with the India U-19 talent Ravindra Jadeja set up an empathic win on their home ground, Sawai Mansingh Stadium, against the Kings XI Punjab. The win puts Rajasthan Royals on the fourth spot of the league table.
The Kings XI Punjab got off to a steady start before Munaf produced a beauty to dismiss Punjab opener Karan Goel. Sangakkara attacked from the very beginning and took on Siddharth Trivedi, who went for 16 off his first over. However, Warne introduced himself into the attack and had Sangakkara caught and bowled. Warne and last year’s Cricket Star runner-up Dinesh Salunkhe, bowled well together to reduce the visitors to 73/4. It could have got worse had a few catches been held from Yuvraj Singh.
Singh and Pathan held the innings together until Warne’s magic got the better of Yuvraj Singh. The Kings XI Punjab seem to loose their way thereafter until a late flurry from Piyush Chawla saw the visitors score 166. Warne was particularly impressive with figures of 3/19 and Siddharth Trivedi made a strong comeback to finish with 2/25.
The Rajasthan Royals opened with Kaif and Akmal. The innings did not quite start in a way that the Rajasthan Royals would have hoped for and they were soon 19/2. However, the runs kept flowing from Akmal and Watson who were particularly severe on Sreesanth. With Akmal’s dismissal, Watson was joined by fellow Aussie Lehmann. The two put on a 50-run partnership before Lehmann was given out leg before. However, Watson along with Jadeja kept the flurry of runs with a 69-run unbroken stand and got the Rajasthan Royals home with 11-balls to spare.
Watson, who towered 5-sixes on his way to 76 off 49 balls, was declared Man-of-the-Match. He praised Jadeja for his 36 off 25 balls effort, who was the more significant contributor in their partnership and helped take the load off Watson. Shane Warne, the captain, said he was very pleased with the team’s performance. He said that they had a specific plan and a specific role for every player and was delighted with the way things went. He added that the team will be further boosted with Graeme Smith, Sohail Tanvir, Younis Khan and Dimitri Mascarenhas joining very soon and that they hoped to cause many more upsets during the course of the competition.