RR stretched the victory to the last over

Sidelights:

At the time of the toss Shane Watson jokingly said that he would accept any total inside 200 runs. He was probably referring to the CSK Vs KXIP match happened just before the said toss. Watson got only 134 runs to achieve which is substantially lower total than what he was wishing and yet his team made sweat to reach that moderate target. You may blame the pitch or the approach by the RR batsmen, but this close finish may hurt RR in the last leg of the IPL when the net run rate will become an important factor to qualify for the playoffs. RR should feel happy about their bowling as they did not allow the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner to get free.

IPL 7 | Match 4 | SRH Vs RR

Venue: Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi

Toss: RR and elected field first

Playing XIs:

SRH: Aaron Finch, Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner, KL Rahul, Darren Sammy, Venugopal Rao, Karan Sharma, Dale Steyn, Amit Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma

RR: Abhishek Nayar, Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Brad Hodge, Rajat Bhatia, James Faulkner, Kane Richardson, Dhawal Kularni, Pravin Tambe

Mini Score Card

SRH 133/6 (20) Run rate: 6.65

Shikhar Dhawan 38 (34) | Rajat Sharma 2/22 (4)

David Warner 32 (35) | Dhawal Kulkarni 2/23

RR 135/6 (19.3) Run rate: 6.92

Ajinkya Rahane 59 (53) | Amit Mishra 2/26 (4)

Stuart Binny 48* (32) | Dale Steyn 2/29 (4)

Result: RR won by 4 wickets

Points: RR 2, SRH 0

Man of the match: Ajinkya Rahane (RR)

Umpires: Billy Bowden | Richard Illingworth | C Shamshuddin (3^rd) | K Srinath (Reserve)

Match Referee: Andy Pycroft

How they played the game

Powerplay: SRH 41 runs and 1 wicket | RR 30 runs 2 wickets

First 50 runs: SRH 48 balls | RR 56 balls

50-100 runs: SRH 49 balls | RR 32 balls

Best Partnership

SRH – 2^nd wicket: 75 runs off 64 balls from Dhawan 38 (34) and Warner 29 (30)

RR – 4^th wicket: 77 runs off 58 balls from Rahane 41 (34) and Binny 34*(24)

Fours and SIXES

SRH – 6 Fours (3 by Dhawan and 1 each by Warner, Rahul and Venugopal Rao) | 2 SIXES (1 each by Dhawan and Rahul)

RR – 14 Fours (6 by Rahane, 4 by Binny, 2 by Faulkner and 1 each by Nayar and Bhatia) | 1 SIX by Binny

Important fact about the game:

• Shane Watson got out to Ishant Sharma for the first time in IPL.

In the PIC: Ajinkya Rahane hits through the offiside

Picture courtesy: ESPN Cricinfo