Faulkner stars in Rajasthan Royals winCricket

April 11, 2015 11:23
},{

(Image source from: })

James Faulkner starred with bat and ball as Rajasthan Royals (RR) squeezed Kings XI Punjab (KXI) in the third match of the Indian Premier League (IPL), winning by 26 runs in Pune despite playing without their first choice skipper Shane Watson.

KXI won the toss and elected to field first. RR had a horrific start after Sandeep Sharma (1-19) started out with a maiden over and Anureet Singh (3-23) picked the star batsman Ajinkya Rahane (0) in his first.

Before long, RR were 15 for two, Sanju Samson (5) caught in front of the stumps by Sandeep, who has one of the best strike-rates amongst all bowlers in IPL.

Karun Nair (8) looked woefully out of touch and lost his middle stump immediately following the only ball he timed well for a six.

Steve Smith (33) provided a good rescue act and it took an Australian, Mitchell Johnson (2-34) to take him out.

In fact, Johnson started brilliantly beating Stuart Binny (13) all ends up repeatedly in his first over, before coming back to pick Smith, who top edged one to third man.

It was a double blow from Johnson as he picked a fidgety Binny three balls later with a full delivery.

RR were in a dismal rut at 88 for five at the end of the 13th over but that is when the turnaround started.

Deepak Hooda (30) played a wonderful 15-ball cameo that included two sixes off Karanveer Singh (0-43) and one more off Anureet before losing his leg-stump.

He added 51 with Faulkner (46) building the base for the latter’s onslaught.

However, the final impetus came from Faulkner who after a very sluggish start with 20 off 25 balls, hammered some excellent strikes to take the RR to 162 in 20 overs.

That was thanks to 19 runs Faulkner took off Johnson’s last over, the 19th of the innings.

Anureet bowled a wonderful 20th over to give away just four runs but it was still a daunting target, never chased down at the ground.

Karanveer was expensive for the KXI but Sandeep and Anureet were excellent with their economy rates while Johnson picked two key wickets including that of Smith.

KXI started out just as badly with Virender Sehwag (0) chasing one outside off the very first delivery and nicking it to the keeper.

Murali Vijay (37) consolidated the innings for a while with wickets of Wriddhiman Saha (7) and Glenn Maxwell (7) falling on the other end.

Vijay though couldn’t see it through as he fell to an unfortunate run-out. In fact, that was the hallmark of the RR’ victory – their brilliant fielding.

Tim Southee (2-36) took a brilliant catch at mid-off to get rid of Maxwell while Samson produced couple of stunning run-outs.

Axar Patel (24) who was promoted up the order couldn’t really up the ante with a strike-rate of just 85 and that proved to be an expensive tactical mistake.

David Miller (23) who averages over 90 when the KXI chase down targets stroked couple of good hits but couldn’t last the distance.

Eventually, George Bailey (24) who had held himself back a little too late, after being let off once, also fell to a great catch at the boundary, a combination effort from Southee and Nair.

Faulkner (3-26), the star of the game with both bat and ball, closed it down with two wickets in the 19th over of Bailey and Johnson (0).

KXI could only manage 136 in their 20 overs.

For RR the bowling was outstanding with Southee slightly expensive though effective and Chris Morris (0-21) bowled tight spell.

Pravin Tambe (0-15) was brilliant in the middle overs as well.

If you enjoyed this Post, Sign up for Newsletter

(And get daily dose of political, entertainment news straight to your inbox)

Rate This Article
(0 votes)