Rahane's 72 takes Rajasthan Royals to 152 for five vs KKR

Ajinkya Rahane hit a classy 72 as Rajasthan Royals posted a fighting 152 for five against Kolkata Knight Riders in a fifth round encounter of the Indian Premier League here today.

While Rahane anchored the innings with proper cricketing shots getting his runs off 59 balls, skipper Watson hit a few lusty blows to score 33 off 24 balls as the 64 runs in 7.3 overs for the third wicket.

Rahane's innings had six boundaries and a six. The manner in which he paced the innings was praiseworthy. When Watson and before that Samson were going after the bowlers, he dropped anchor getting those singles along with odd boundaries as Royals reached 150 because of the Mumbai man.

Once he got his half-century, he opened up pulling Vinay Kumar for a six. For KKR, Shakib al Hasan (1/23) and Sunil Narine (0/28) had a decent outing. R Vinay Kumar (2/30) was the most successful bowler for KKR.

Opting to bat, Karun Nair's (1) struggle in this format continued as he tried to give his state captain Vinay the charge and saw delivery cutting back into clip the leg bail.

Sanju Samson (20) got four boundaries off Morkel in the final Powerplay over but was out in a freak manner. The talented Kerala youngster got onto the backfoot as Shakib bowled a fuller delivery. The ball hit his pads and rolled onto the stumps.

Rahane hit a few crisp boundaries and also got one when a thickish edge off a rising delivery from Morkel flew over the slip cordon.

When Chawla was introduced into the attack, Rahane played a copybook sweep shot to get a boundary when the bowler pitched one well outside the leg-stump.


The first 10 overs produced 62 runs for the loss of two wickets.

Skipper Watson's first big hit was a lofted one bounce four off a flighted delivery from Shakib. Rahane followed his skipper as he also used his feet to perfection to play the inside-out lofted shot over extra cover for a boundary.

The watershed moment for Royals came in the 14th over before the second strategic time-out as Watson got three boundaries off Piyush Chawla as it yielded 17 runs in all.
The first was a slog sweep while the second was a cover drive and the third one a lucky escape as the inside edge went for a boundary.

In the next over from Narine, Watson smashed him over extra cover for a boundary. Rahane in the meantime completed his second 50 off the tournament off 44 balls.