Rajasthan Royals 170-4 (Ajinkya Rahane 61, Shane Watson 58, Ashish Nehra 3-23) beat Pune Warriors 125-9 (Steven Smith 37, Angelo Mathews 23, Ajit Chandila 4-13) by 45 runs.

Ajit Chandila - The heart breaker of Pune Warriors with a wicket haul of 4-13.
Ajit Chandila – The heart breaker of Pune Warriors with a wicket haul of 4-13.

Ajit Chandila crushed the top order batting of Pune Warriors with a maiden hat-trick of IPL 2012 as Rajasthan Royals pushed them to a humiliating debacle.

Rajasthan Royals piled up 170 runs with six wickets in hand at the end of the scheduled 20 overs and Pune Warriors were crushed to 125 for the loss of nine wickets.

Ajit Chandila (Rajasthan Royals) was declared ‘Player of the match’ for his lethal bowling spell of 4-13 runs.

The 60th match of the Indian Premier League 2012 was played at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur on Sunday, May 13, 2012.

Earlier, the captain of Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Dravid won the toss and opted to bat at the familiar home strip while opening the innings with Ajinkya Rahane. The bowling was initiated by the left arm spinner Murali Kartik and Ashish Nehra from the other end. The batsmen started off in a fluent way and accumulated 29 runs in the first four overs but Dravid was caught on the third ball of the fifth over off Nehra for 21 off 20 balls with 4 fours.

Shane Watson came in next, joined with Rahane and the run rate picked up immediately as 11 runs were picked up in the sixth over moreover the first fifty of the innings was posted on board in the following over. Watson opened up later and dispatched 24 runs in the 10th and 11th overs with the assistance of a couple of sixes and even fours. He continued with the blast and added 14 runs in the 13th over with two fours and a six while completing his fifty and the hundred of the innings also appeared on board.

The second wicket partnership contributed 94 runs in 10 overs as Shane Watson was clean bowled by Ashish Nehra for 58 off just 31 deliveries with 4 lofty sixes and 6 fours. Rahane carried on the attack and became the fourth victim not before scoring 61 off 47 with 7 fours as Rajasthan Royals plundered 170 runs for the loss of four wickets in 20 overs.

Ashish Nehra was the supreme bowler with three wickets and Angelo Mathews chipped in with one wicket.

Pune Warriors had the worst start when the off spinner, Ajit Chandila ripped through their top order batting and they were reeling at 26-4 in 4.5 overs. The batting power house which included their skipper, Sourav Ganguly, the hard hitting Jesse Ryder, Robin Uthappa and Anustup Majumdar was sent back to the pavilion by the unplayable Chandila.

Ajit Chandila achieved the hat-trick by removing Ryder on the fifth ball of the first over, Ganguly was gone on the next ball and Uthappa became the third victim on the first ball of his next over.

Callum Ferguson and Steven Smith provided some resistance and the bowling offence was handled with patience but the runs were hard to come. The first fifty of the innings was attained in the ninth over and they enhanced the total to 60 runs after consuming 10.1 overs. Ferguson was declared leg before wicket off Johan Botha for 23 as Angelo Mathews appeared on the scene and Smith carried on consolidating with few boundaries at the other end. They added 29 runs for the sixth wicket when Smith was caught near long on by Brad Hodge off Botha for 37 off 31 balls with 5 fours.

The wickets started crumbling after that as the bowlers of Rajasthan Royals were unplayable and Mathews was the eighth victim for 23 as Pune Warriors managed just 125 runs with one wicket in hand when the last ball of the scheduled over was bowled.

Ajit Chandila was the star performer with four wickets, Shane Watson and Johan Botha shared a couple of wickets each as Shaun Tait held one wicket.

Rajasthan Royals grasped the match comfortably by 45 runs and two more points in their account.

Points achieved by the two teams at the end of the 60th match of the Indian Premier League 2012:

Rajasthan Royals  – 14 from 14 games at a net run rate of +0.335.

Pune Warriors        –  8 from 15 games at a net run rate of -0.477.

 

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