Mumbai: Ajinkya Rahane (91 in 54 balls) and Karun Nair (61 from 38 balls) helped Rajasthan Royals (RR) recording his sixth win of the season, beating Delhi Daredevils (DD) by 14 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL ) 2015 encounter at the Brabourne Stadium here on Sunday (Scorecard | Highlights).
Riding on a 113 runs partnership for Rahane and Nair for the second window, Royals posted a challenging 189/2 in 20 overs.
In response, rash never came close to matching the skills displayed by the Royals and finally ended their tickets 175/7 in 20 overs. Skipper JP Duminy was the top scorer with 56 runs reckless off 39 balls.
With the defeat, Delhi suffered their fifth defeat in the tournament.
Earlier lose the launch and stick, Rajasthan had a modest start, with openers Shane Watson Rahane and take time to settle in the middle.
But with a couple of overs bowled, they took on the reckless bowling team accumulating first fifty in just 6.2 overs.
But as Captain Watson was looking to establish a delivery wonder Angelo Mathews got grabbed by the wicketkeeper for 21 off 24 balls.
His wicket did not put the brakes on the scoreboard as Rahane took over from there to hit the ball all over the park.
Incoming batsman, Nair also held easily to give good company to Rahane.
The duo took advantage of a poor fielding by visitors to put 100 runs on the scoreboard at 14 more.
Rahane hit nine to four feet and three sixes, while teammate Nair hit six boundaries and two sixes.
The duo brought up their 100-run partnership for the second wicket in just 63 balls.
With its splendid innings, Rahane replaced Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner in the IPL 2015 list run leading scorers with 430 runs.
Daredevils fell three sacks in the entries. Gurinder Sandhu and Saurabh Tiwary and Rahane fell Nair, respectively, and later Amit Mishra and Zaheer Khan collided and fell Rahane.
For Delhi, Mathews was the selection of the bowlers, picking up a wicket and finished with figures of 4-0-27-1 but other bowlers – Zaheer Khan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Amit Mishra, Gurwinder Sandhu – all heavy runs filtered.
Chasing a challenging score of 189, Delhi had a worst possible start with the loss of both openers – Mayank Agarwal (11) and Shreyas Iyer (9) – within five overs.
Incoming batsman Yuvraj Singh also did not last long, scoring just 22 off 18 balls. Angelo Mathews (16) and Cedar Jadav (11) also departed in the space of two overs.
This made it more difficult for daring to pursue the ultimate goal. Skipper Duminy did his best, but looking at the rate of scoring, was captured by Dhawal Kulkarni off the bowling of James Faulkner.
With the dismissal of Duminy all seemed to Delhi as windows fell in clusters.
For Rajasthan, James Faulkner was the selection of bowlers picking up two wickets and ending with figures of 4-0-22-2. Shane Watson 4-1-25-1 ended. Dhawal Kulkarni was racing but picked up two wickets. Stuart Binny also took two wickets in two overs.
Brief Score: Rajasthan Royals 189/2 in 20 overs (Ajinkya Rahane 91 not out, Karun Nair 61; Angelo Mathews 1/27, Nathan Coulter-Nile 1/38) beat Delhi Daredevils 111/2 in 20 overs (JP Duminy 56; James Faulkner 2/22, Stuart Binny 2/27, 2/43 Dhawal Kulkarni, Shane Watson 1/25)
