New Delhi: Young Karun Nair cracked a brilliant unbeaten half-century to guide Rajasthan Royals to a comfortable seven-wicket victory over Delhi Daredevils in their IPL 7 match at the Ferozshah Kotla Stadium here on Saturday.
Nair anchored the Rajasthan run-chase with 50-ball 73-run that was laced with eight fours and two sixes.
The 22-year-old added 51 runs off 43 balls for the second wicket with Sanju Samson (34) as the Royals overhauled the 153-run target with nine balls to spare.
Earlier, opener Quinton de Kock blasted 42 off 33 balls at the top, while JP Duminy provided the late charge with a 31-ball 39 to power Delhi Daredevils to a competitive 152-5 in their stipulated 20 overs after Rajasthan skipper Shane Watson won the toss and elected to field.
Defending 152, Wayne Parnell dismissed Ajinkya Rahane (12) early in the innings with Murali Vijay pulling off a sensational catch at cover.
But the early setback didn’t affect Rajasthan’s runchase as other opener Nair and Sanju Samson (34) stitched together 51 runs off 43 balls for the second wicket.
But their promising partnership was cut short by spinner Shabhaz Nadeem off the last ball of the 10th over when he deceived Samson with a tossed up delivery and wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik did a good job behind the wicket to reduce Rajasthan to 71 for two in 10 overs.
Samson hit two fours and a couple of sixes in his 28-ball innings.
Rajat Bhatia then joined Nair and the duo picked up sixes off Unadkat and Rahul Sharma over extra cover and long on respectively as Rajasthan crossed the 100-mark in the 13th over.
Bhatia was dismissed by Mohammed Shami in the 15th over. But it didn’t have any affect as Watson (16) and Nair then finished the job with an unbeaten 41-run partnership off only 21 balls.
For Delhi, Parnell, Nadeem and Shami took one wicket each.
Daredevils captain Kevin Pietersen admitted that 152 was not a good enough total to restrict a side like Rajasthan Royals, but he wants his boys to keep their chins up and carry on fighting for the rest of the tournament.
“I thought in the 10th over when myself and Quinny got out, that undid us,” Pietersen said.
“It was poor for both of us to get out and we didn’t have enough runs on the board. I want the boys to keep their heads up, they’ve done all they can and that’s all one can ask for,” the DD skipper said.
Pietersen reckoned that the track got slower with passage of time.
“The pitch got slower, but we just didn’t have a score on. (Satisfied with his bowling attack). We’re talking the right language and the boys are training hard and that’s all anyone can ask for.”
Watson was very happy to have restricted the Daredevils around the 150-run mark.
“It’s a nice win. We were able to restrict such a high quality batting order to around 150. We controlled it well in the middle with Pravin Tambe and Rajat Bhatia bowling well. We’ve got quite a lot of bowlers to mix and match and the way Karun steered the ship home, it’s quite exciting,” Watson said. (PTI)
Brief scores:
DD: 152/5, 20 overs (Q de Kock 42, JP Duminy 39; P Tambe 2-25, J Faulkner 2-26)
RR: 156/3, 18.3 overs (K Nair 73, S Samson 34; M Shami 1-22)
Points Table
Team Played Won Pts
CSK 6 5 10
KXIP 6 5 10
Raj 6 4 8
KKR 6 2 4 RCB 5 2 4
Hyd 5 2 4
DD 6 2 4
Mum 6 1