Sunrisers Hyderabad will aim to recover from the recent slump and get back to winning ways when they face an under-pressure Mumbai Indians in a league encounter of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium here on Tuesday.

Sunrisers have slipped from a comfortable three-match winning start, suffering back-to-back defeats to Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) respectively, and would be keen to bounce back.

Defending champions Mumbai, on the other hand have a tough task to rediscover themselves after slumping to their fourth loss in five games.

Mumbai had started their campaign with three losses on the trot before registering their first win over Royal Challengers Bangalore, but the three-wicket defeat to Rajasthan Royals on Sunday has once again put them under tremendous pressure.

With nine games left before the play-off stage, Mumbai find themselves in a tight situation to win at least seven of them to improve their chances. As such, a win over SRH on Tuesday is imperative to keep them in the hunt.

Barring local boy Suryakumar Yadav’s heroics with the willow, Mumbai have very little to boast of this season, with the other batsmen yet to deliver.

Yadav has had a consistent run of good scores in the opening slot, leaving him four short of reaching the 200 mark for the season, while skipper Rohit Sharma struck one match-winning knock of 94 against RCB.

Mumbai’s biggest misery in batting has been the repeated failures of West Indian Keiron Pollard and his compatriot Evin Lewis, at the top while the all-rounder duo of Pandya brothers — Hardik and Krunal — have also failed to impress with the bat this season.

In the bowling department, the pace duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman have been right on the money while Mitchell McClenaghan has got among the wickets despite finishing with a higher economy rate. The Pandya siblings have done a decent job with the ball.

Meanwhile, despite a three-match winning streak, Sunrisers find themselves at the lower half of the IPL table, thanks to the successive defeats to Kings XI and CSK.

While captain Kane Williamson has been in superb form, carrying the batting on his shoulders to amass 230 runs in five games, the other batsmen, including opener Shikhar Dhawan, have not given him adequate support.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha has been particularly below par with a tally of just 62 runs and may soon make way for Shreevats Goswami.

Among other batsmen, Yusuf Pathan showed glimpses of his old attacking self against Rajasthan with a quick 27-ball 45, but still lacks consistency.

The bowling unit looks formidable with Bhuvneshwar Kumar leading the pack in the company of youngsters Siddarth Kaul, Billy Stanlake and T.Natarajan.

Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan along with Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan will aim to contain the fancied Mumbai line-up in the middle overs.

Teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (Captain), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan, Shakib Al Hasan, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, T.Natarajan, Mohammad Nabi, Basil Thampi, K Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Sachin Baby, Chris Jordan, Billy Stanlake, Tanmay Agarwal, Shreevats Goswami, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Alex Hales.

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mustafizur Rahman, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rahul Chahar, Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary, Ben Cutting, Pradeep Sangwan, Jean-Paul Duminy, Tajinder Singh, Sharad Lumba, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Mayank Markande, Akila Dhananjaya, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, MD Nidheesh, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne.

By Shri Ram shaw

Youth Olympic Games Qualifiers to begin in Thailand on April 25
Men’s team led by Vivek Sagar Prasad and Women’s Team led by Salima Tete leave from IGI Airport

The Junior Indian Men and Women’s Hockey Teams left early Monday morning for the Youth Olympic Games Qualifiers to begin in Bangkok, Thailand on April 25. The five-day tournament is a qualifying event for Youth Olympic Games 2018 to be held at Buenos Aires, Argentina which will follow the futuristic Hockey 5’s format.

The nine-member Junior Indian Men’s Team led by Vivek Sagar Prasad, who was part of the Indian Men’s Team at the Gold Coast XXI Commonwealth Games, with Vice Captain Rabichandra Singh Moirangthem is upbeat and ready for the challenge. They are grouped with Korea, Japan, Hong Kong China, and Thailand in Pool A and begin their campaign against Thailand on April 25.

“We have had good preparations in Agra where the team has worked really hard over the past month and a half. It is a fast-paced format, hence there was a lot of emphasis on improving reaction time of players. With solid ground work, I am hopeful of good results,” Jude Felix, Coach for Junior Men’s Team said.

Meanwhile, the Junior Indian Women’s Team with the experience of Skipper Salima Tete and Vice Skipper Lalremsiami, who was part of the Indian Women’s Team that made the Semi Final of XXI Commonwealth Games, are eager for a good show at the event.

Their Coach, Baljeet Singh Saini said, “It’s good to have players who have gained international exposure with the Senior Team. This team has undergone good preparations and are confident of a good show.” The Junior Indian Women are grouped with Korea, Thailand and Singapore and kick off their campaign against Singapore on April 25.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

In IPL Cricket, Delhi Daredevils will clash with Kings Eleven Punjab at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi at 8 in the evening on Monday.

On Sunday night Rajasthan Royals beat Mumbai Indians by 3 wickets at Jaipur to hand the defending champions their fourth defeat in 5 games.

Opting to bat, Mumbai posted 167 for 7, riding on Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan’s 130-run second wicket stand. Rajasthan’s West Indian pacer Jofra Archer bagged 3 wickets.

In reply, the hosts overhauled the target with 2 balls to spare, with Sanju Samson making a half century. Archer was named man of the match.

Earlier in the day, Chennai Super Kings defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 4 runs to again go at the top of the 8-team points table.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

Celebrated former opening batsman Virender Sehwag on Friday said India are favourites to lift the 2019 ICC World Cup to be held in England.

“We are favourites to win the 2019 World Cup,” Sehwag said during the launch of Boria Majumdar’s book ‘Eleven Gods and A Billion Indians’ at the Fannatic Sports Museum here.

Sehwag said this Indian team under Virat Kohli has the potential to win a Test series abroad despite their 1-2 defeat in South Africa in the recently concluded test series.

“This team has the capability to win Test series outside India. We could have won the first or second Test if we played one session well with the bat,” said Sehwag who is Kings XI Punjab’s mentor in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). Punjab take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday.

Asked if this bowling attack is the best till date, Sehwag said, “In our days, we had (Javagal) Srinath , Zaheer (Khan), (Ajit) Agarkar and Ashish (Nehra). But they rarely got to play together and when they did we reached the final in the 2003 World Cup.

“This lot is really good. They can deliver in any conditions.”

India will tour Australia later this year but the hosts will be without the star power of skipper Steve Smith and opener David Warner who have been suspended for a year for the ball tampering incident. Quizzed if that would help Kohli and Co, Sehwag said, “It doesn’t matter if they are there or not.”

Sehwag, who won two World Cups with India, the 2007 inaugural T20 World Cup and the 2011 50-over World Cup, added that winning the 2007 World Cup was more special as India had a young team under then just-appointed skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and there were no expectations.

“I think 2007 World Cup win is the best. We won there with a young team and a new captain. Nobody expected us to win,” he recalled.

On Punjab’s West Indian opener Chris Gayle, who smashed a whirlwind 63-ball 104 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday, Sehwag said there is no bigger entertainer than the effervescent 38-year-old who is T20 cricket’s most successful batsman.

“Nobody is a greater entertainer than him,” Sehwag said.

Gayle was not picked in the IPL auctions initially before Punjab decided to take T20 cricket’s most successful batsman for his base price of Rs.2 crore.

Dropped for the first two games, Gayle helped Punjab beat Chennai Super Kings by notching up a 33-ball 63 before the hundred.

“That was a strategy because we had to buy other players also. He would have cost more if he was taken up in the first phase,” Sehwag explained.

“He was injured last season and it is difficult to score runs. Ask any cricketer, with a back injury, it’s difficult to score runs and that’s what he told us also. He missed a lot of games because he had pain in his back.

“Kohli dropped him also (from Royal Challengers Bangalore). I was expecting nobody will pick him, he’s of my age. If we pick him, he’s good guy to do the marketing. He’s fabulous with all the marketing guys, everyone loves Chris Gayle. He fits in our group also.

“We bought him for Rs 2 crore and if he wins two games, I recovered my money. Still more games to go and if he wins two more time he wins four games. He’s a big asset for KXIP now,” Sehwag added.

(Ians)

The UEFA Europa League trophy has been recovered, two days after it was stolen, after a private exhibition in Mexico’s Guanajuato state, officials said.

The trophy was recovered on Friday, Efe news reported citing the office of the prosecutor general of the Guanajuato.

The trophy, designed by Milan-based firm GDE Bertoni, represents the second most important tournament in Europe after the Champions League, and had been exhibited to employees and sports enthusiasts by a sponsor company in the city of Leon and was stolen from a vehicle after the exhibition.

Sources in the prosecutor’s office said complaint of the theft of the trophy — made of pure silver and set on a marble base — was lodged on Friday morning.

The authorities tweeted out an image of the trophy safely laid in cloth to prove that it was in friendly hands, but did not provide more detail of the incident, goal.com reported.

Semifinals of the Europa League are set to begin next week and the trophy will be awarded to the winners on May 16 in Lyon, France.

Opener Shane Watson hit a fantastic 106-run knock as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) thrashed Rajasthan Royals (RR) by 64 runs here on Friday to register their third win in four games in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Veteran Australian all-rounder Watson took just 51 deliveries to bring up his third IPL century, guided by nine boundaries and six sixes, to propel Chennai to a massive 204/5 at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium which is the southern franchise’s new home venue.

In reply, Rajasthan were bowled out for 140 in 18.3 overs as they suffered second straight loss after winning the first two.

Put in to bat, Chennai were off to a decent start as openers Watson and Ambati Rayudu (12) shared a 50-run partnership for the opening wicket in 4.2 overs.

Medium pacer Ben Laughlin drew the first blood for Rajasthan as he sent back Rayudu in the fifth over.

Watson was then joined by Suresh Raina and the duo stitched together an 81-run partnership for the second wicket. Raina chipped in with a crucial 47-run knock before falling in the 12th over to a Shreyas Gopal delivery which left CSK on 131/2.

K. Gowtham, Stuart Binny and Ben Stokes were severely punished by Raina and Watson. The Australian hit spinner Gowtham for at three sixes, while left-arm medium pacer Jaydev Unadkat also got hit for two sixes by the retired international.

CSK then lost the wickets of Mahendra Singh Dhoni (5) and Sam Billings (3) with the addition of another 30 runs. It was leggie Shreyas again, who struck to dismiss both the Chennai batters.

Meanwhile, Watson kept the scoreboard ticking and added 41 runs with Dwayne Bravo to take CSK past the 200-run mark. Bravo remained unbeaten on 24 runs facing 16 balls.

The Australian all-rounder however, fell in the last over but it was too late for Rajasthan as CSK posted a massive 205-run target against them.

For Rajasthan, Shreyas was the pick of the bowlers, with figures of 3/20, while Australian Laughlin bagged a couple of wickets conceding 38 runs.

During the chase, Rajasthan lost wickets at regular intervals and never looked like to be in contention. Their start to the innings was quite poor.

Deepak Chahar’s away-moving ball was edged to first slip by Heinrich Klassen but Watson dropped the catch coming at his chest height in the second delivery of the first over. However, Shardul Thakur removed the South African, who was bowled in the fifth delivery of the second over, with the visiting side’s score at 20.

In the following over, Chahar dismissed Sanju Samson (2) as the Kerala batsman failed to handle a bouncer, managing it to touch it with the top-end of the bat.

Chahar then dismissed Ajinkya Rahane (16 off 11) when the latter missed the line attempting a cross-bat stroke, leaving his side at 32/3 in 4.3 overs.

The writing was on the wall for Rajasthan and a 45-run fourth-wicket stand between Englishmen Ben Stokes (45 off 37) and Jos Buttler (22 off 17) could do little to give them some hopes.

Buttler perished as the ball went up in the air after he failed to time a rising delivery from medium pacer Dwayne Bravo. Imran Tahir took an easy catch to end the partnership, with Rajasthan at 77/4 in 10.1 overs.

Bravo then sent back Rahul Tripathi (5) before left-hander Stokes was caught on the leg side by Sam Billings as he tried to slog sweep leg-spinner Tahir. The wicket of Stokes was nail in the coffin for the visitors who were reduced to 111/6 in 13.5 overs.

Watson then got the wicket of K. Gowtham (1) and Bravo dismissed Stuart Binny (10) to complete the formalities for Chennai.

Brief Scores: Chennai Super Kings: 204/5 (Shane Watson 106, Suresh Raina 46; Shreyas Iyer 3/20) vs Rajasthan Royals: 140 all out in 18.3 overs (Ben Stokes 45, Jos Buttler 22; Karn Sharma 2/13, Dwayne Bravo 2/16, Shardul Thakur 2/18).

Praising his fellow boxers for their performance at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games, star pugilist and gold medal winner Vikas Krishan Yadav asserted that the Indian squad will improve their medal haul at the Asian Games later this year.

India picked up nine boxing medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, earlier this month. All the eight Indian boxers in the men’s categories finished on the podium while five-time world champion M.C. Mary Kom won gold in the women’s 48 kg division.

Vikas was confident that Indian boxers will put up a much better show at this year’s Asian Games than the 2014 edition, although he admitted that the standard will be much tougher than the Commonwealth Games.

“There is no comparison between the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. The Asiad is like a mini Olympics. Countries like Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Mongolia, China and former Soviet nations like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are among the stronger nations in world boxing. The Asian Games is going to be much tougher. We will not get such easy competition like the Commonwealth Games,” Vikas told IANS.

“But still we should improve our medal haul at the Asian Games, including at least one gold. Last time we got just two medals when Satish and I got bronzes in our respective categories. This time we should get four to five medals,” he added.

However, the 26-year-old felt that with all eight Indian boxers among the men reaching the semi-finals of their respective categories, the number of gold medals should have been higher.

Gaurav Solanki, who emerged champion in the flyweight (52kg) division, was the only Indian apart from Vikas to win gold among the men.

“Overall performance was good, but we could have won more gold medals. Manish (Kaushik), Amit (Phangal) and Satish (Kumar) all lost by very small margins in their respective finals. All these finals were extremely close and could have gone either way,” the Haryana pugilist said.

“The final bouts that our boxers won, like me and Gaurav Solanki, were by 5:0 margins. But the finals that we lost were by scores like 3:2. So the fact that five of our boxers did so well after reaching their respective finals reveals volumes of our high standards,” he added.

Vikas, who won gold in the middleweight (75kg) category in Gold Coast, asserted that he did not face too much of a challenge on his way to the maiden Commonwealth Games title of his career.

“It was not tough for me at all. Everybody was saying that I had a very tough draw, but I did not face too much of a challenge. I had a bit of a trouble in the quarter-finals, but after that I beat three Olympians from the 2016 Rio Games one after the other,” the Indian Army boxer said.

“Fighting three Olympians in consecutive bouts is not an easy task. But I registered one-sided victories in each of those bouts,” he added.

(IANS)

Currently languishing at the bottom of the Indian Premier League (IPL) table, both Delhi Daredevils (DD) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will be aiming to return to their winning ways when they face off at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.

Both teams have struggled to get going this season with just one win apiece from the four games each have played so far.

With just two points, the Gautam Gambhir-led Delhi side are at the eighth place in the points table. RCB have the same number of points but sit a place above Delhi with a slightly better net run-rate.

In their campaign opener against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Bengaluru failed in defending a competitive 177 runs but salvaged a win in their second game by chasing a moderate 156 runs against Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) at home.

They later went on to be on the receiving end in the games against Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Mumbai Indians (MI), losing by 19 and 46 runs respectively.

Other than Kohli, the other big names in the RCB squad have failed to fire till now. While the RCB skipper has amassed 201 runs from four outings, averaging 67.00, AB de Villers, Quinton de Kock and Brendon McCullum have accumulated 122, 94 and 47 runs respectively.

In the bowling department, pacer Chris Woakes has been impressive with eight wickets from four games while Umesh Yadav has also provided the much needed breakthrough whenever his side needed.

Umesh has pocketed seven wickets from four games.

However, the main cause of concern for Bengaluru has been the death bowling as the side has leaked too many runs in the dying moments.

On the other hand, Delhi too, had a poor start to their IPL 2018 campaign after losing their first two games against KXIP and RR. The Gautam Gambhir-led side received their first win against Mumbai, thanks to a fine knock by foreigner Jason Roy and Rishabh Pant.

While Jason slammed an unbeaten 53-ball 91, Rishabh chipped in with valuable 47 to help Delhi hunt down a challeging 195 runs.

Delhi however, failed to repeat the story against KKR as they succumbed to chase 201 runs against KKR and lost the issue by 71 runs.

For Delhi, only Rishabh has looked good so far with the willow while Ray, who played a match winning knock against Mumbai, has featured in just two games. The other batters, including skipper Gambhir, have struggled to gather runs.

In the bowling unit, young leggie Rahul Tewatia has lived upto the expectations of the franchise after scalping six wickets from four games. The 24-year-old has also been economical with 7.13 runs per over (rpo).

Pacer Trent Boult has also same number of wickets but has been slightly expensice after 8.62 rpo.

The Bangalore side will however, be the favorites in Saturday’s clash as out of 18 matches in the IPL overall, the Kohli-led team has won 12 and Delhi has won the remaining 6.

The squads:

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Brendon McCullum, Chris Woakes, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Quinton de Kock, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Manan Vohra, Kulwant Khejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Murugan Ashwin, Mandeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Mohammed Siraj, Parthiv Patel, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Tim Southee, Corey Anderson

Delhi Daredevils: Shreyas Iyer, Chris Morris, Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir (captain), Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Daniel Christian, Jayant Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Trent Boult, Manjot Kalra, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Lamichhane, Naman Ojha, Sayan Ghosh, Liam Plunkett

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) stretched their winning run to two games by registering a facile seven-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Wednesday.

After restricting RR to 160/8, the two-time champions, who also won against Delhi Daredevils by 71 runs in their last game, rode on Robin Uthappa’s 36-ball 48 (6×4, 2×6) to set up the chase and eventually win with seven balls to spare posting 163/3 in 18.5 overs.

Skipper Dinesh Karthik (42 not out; 2×4, 2×6) and Nitish Rana (35 not out; 2×4, 1×6) combined for an unbroken 61-run partnership for the fourth wicket to ease past the line. Karthik hit a six off Ben Laughlin to secure the win in style.

KKR never looked in trouble despite losing out-of-form Australian opener Chris Lynn (0) in only the second ball of their innings, with off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham (2/23) flattening his stumps with a ball that spun sharply into the batsman who tried to cut.

Uthappa and Narine then came together for a 69-run stand for the first wicket. Uthappa looked in imperious form, hitting Jaydev Unadkat for three fours in the fifth over.

Narine took time to get into the groove, smashing a six off Laughlin over deep midwicket using the depth of the crease to good effect.

Narine was run out soon after the Powerplay in which the visitors had raced to 53/1, while Uthappa fell two short of a half century, holing out to Ben Stokes who took a brilliant catch at the long-on boundary off Gowtham’s bowling.

Earlier, KKR bowlers picked up wickets at regular intervals to restrict RR to 160/8 in 20 overs.

Narine had an off day leaking 48 runs in four overs without taking a wicket but in-form Rana put his hand up to remove openers Ajinkya Rahane (36; 19b 5×4 1×6) and D’Arcy Short (44; 43b 5×4 1×6) while Tom Curran shaved off the lower order with two scalps in two deliveries.

For the hosts, Short was the top-scorer but never got going while explosive England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler helped them reach a fighting target with a 18-ball, 24 not out.

In the last over, young fast bowler Shivam Mavi (1/40) bowled three wide balls and Chris Lynn dropped Dhawal Kulkarni (3) but he was later run out.

The visitors, choosing to field first after skipper Karthik won the toss, were given a good start by wrist spinners Piyush Chawla (1/18) and Kuldeep Yadav (1/23) who combined well to leak just nine runs in the first three overs.

Rahane then took on Narine, the most economical bowler in the IPL so far, hitting him for four back-to-back fours straight up. The India Test team vice-captain swept and drove the West Indian mystery spinner with aplomb to garner 18 runs off the over.

Rahane looked in sublime form as he smashed Mavi for a flat six down the wicket in the next over as Short also milked the U-19 World Cup winner for a boundary. After six overs, RR were 48/0.

RR then lost two quick wickets. First, Karthik effected a brilliant diving run out to get rid of the dangerous Rahane off Nitish Rana, breaking the 54-run opening wicket stand between him and Short.

Sanju Samson followed suit soon after, picking out Kuldeep at deep midwicket off Mavi and just when Short was looking to accelerate, Rana castled him with a slider in the next over to break the 36-run third wicket partnership with Rahul Tripathi.

The inaugural IPL winners never recovered from there and were short by 10-20 runs.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 160/8 in 20 overs (D’Arcy Short 44, Ajinkya Rahane 36; Ntiish Rana 2/11, Tom Curran 2/19) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 163/3 in 18.5 overs (Robin Uthappa 48, Dinesh Karthik 42 not out, Nitish Rana 35 not out; K Gowtham 2/23) by seven wickets.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowlers picked up wickets at regular intervals to restrict Rajasthan Royals to 160/8 in 20 overs in an Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Wednesday.

Sunil Narine had an off day leaking 48 runs in four overs without taking a wicket but in-form Nitish Rana put his hand up to remove openers Ajinkya Rahane (36; 19b 5×4 1×6) and D’Arcy Short (44; 43b 5×4 1×6) while Tom Curran shaved off the lower order with two scalps in two deliveries.

For the hosts, Short was the top-scorer but never got going while explosive England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler helped them reach a fighting target with a 18-ball 24 not out.

In the last over, young fast bowler Shivam Mavi (1/40) bowled three wide balls and Chris Lynn dropped Dhawal Kulkarni (3) who was later run out.

The visitors, choosing to field first after skipper Dinesh Karthik won the toss, were given a good start by wrist spinners Piyush Chawla (1/18) and Kuldeep Yadav (1/23) who combined well to leak just nine runs in the first three overs.

Rahane then took on Narine, the most economical bowler in the IPL so far, hitting him for four back-to-back fours straight up. The India Test team vice-captain swept and drove the West Indian mystery spinner with aplomb to garner 18 runs off the over.

Rahane looked in sublime form as he smashed Mavi for a flat six down the wicket in the next over as Short also milked the U-19 World Cup winner for a boundary. After six overs, RR were 48/0.

RR then lost two quick wickets. First, Karthik effected a brilliant diving run out to get rid of the dangerous Rahane off Nitish Rana, breaking the 54-run opening wicket stand between him and Short.

Sanju Samson, whose unbeaten 45-ball 92 helped RR win against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the last game, followed suit soon after, picking out Kuldeep at deep midwicket off Mavi who bowled really well to cramp the Kerala batsman for room.

Just when Short was looking to accelerate, taking on Mavi for a six and four off successive deliveries in the 12th over, Rana castled him with a slider in the next over to break the 36-run third wicket partnership with Rahul Tripathi.

The inaugural IPL winners never recovered from there as Tripathi (15) and Ben Stokes (14) departed without any significant contribution, their wickets taken by Kuldeep and Chawla respectively.

Curran then accounted for K. Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal in consecutive deliveries to further dent RR’s plans of scoring big in the last two overs with the big-hitting Buttler at the crease.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 160/8 in 20 overs (D’Arcy Short 44, Ajinkya Rahane 36; Ntiish Rana 2/11, Tom Curran 2/19) vs Kolkata Knight Riders

(IANS)