Rajasthan Royals post 189/2 against Delhi Daredevils

Ajinkya Rahane and Karun Nair hit sparkling half centuries and got involved in a century stand to power Rajasthan Royals to an imposing  score of 189 for 2 wickets against Delhi Daredevils in their IPL cricket match at the Brabourne Stadium here today.

Rahane warmed up slowly before tearing into Delhi bowling to post his fourth half century of the season as well as reach to 430 runs in his 10th game while making an unbeaten 91 -- his highest this season -- from 54 balls, studded with three sixes and nine fours. He claimed the orange cap for being the highest run scorer till now.

Nair, promoted to number three at the fall of captain Shane Watson (21), gave his senior partner Rahane splendid support by making a quick-fire 61 off 38 balls, laced with two sixes and six fours, before being dismissed in the 19th over.

The duo's second wicket stand worth 113 off 69 balls helped Rajasthan up the ante further after Rahane and captain Watson had put on 52 for the first wicket in 6.5 overs.

Delhi started off well the 500th match of the IPL but then their pace-oriented bowling became wayward and the fielding rugged as three catches, two off Rahane and one off Nair, were put down and they also conceded runs through misfielding. The visiting side conceded 75 runs in the last five overs.

In the beginning, Delhi kept Rahane and captain Watson on a leash on the Brabourne Stadium track that offered good bounce till the end of the fourth over by conceding 23 runs.

However, the fifth over bowled by Zaheer Khan yielded 13 runs when Rahane struck him for a four to the cover region and then Watson slashed and clipped the bowler for two fours when he erred in line.

When Rahane flicked Nathan Coulter-Nile bowled on his pads, Rahane gleefully dispatched it for another four that helped Royals end the six-over power play with 43 on board without losing a wicket.

The teams:
Rajasthan Royals: Shane Watson (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith, Karun Nair, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny, Deepak Hooda, James Faulkner, Rajat Bhatia, Dhawal Kulkarni, Tim Southee.

Delhi Daredevils: JP Duminy (captain), Mayank Agarwal, Shreyas Iyer, Yuvraj Singh, Angelo Mathews, Kedar Jadhav, Saurabh Tiwary, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Amit Mishra, Zaheer Khan, Gurinder Sandhu.