Rajasthan Royals entered IPL T20 season 2 as the defending champions and the expectations were quite high on them to perform. But Warne and his boys could not pull up a win against the Bangalore Royal Challengers which was led under a new captain Kevin Pieterse. However, it was proved once again in this match that the veterans are the pillars of any team and the two best performances in this match were Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. Pietersen won the toss and decided to bat first. They were put on the backfoot by an exceptional bowling by Rajasthan Royals bolwers initially led by Dimitri Mascarenhas who took two wickets in the first three balls of the match. The Royal Challengers initially seemed to be unable to take on the challenge of the Royals but Rahul Dravid’s brilliant innings (66 off 48 balls) and Kevin Pietersen’s innings (32 off 30 balls) helped the Royal Challengers reach a score of 133 off their 20 overs. The target seemed to be quite easy but Rajasthan Royals had a terrible start where none of their batsmen could bat for long and they lost wickets and regular intervals. They could not increase their run rate too and an excellent spell by Anil Kumble picking 5 wickets for 5 runs made sure that they were bundled out for the second lowest t20 total ever of 58 runs. Rahul Dravid was declared as the man of the match for the game.
Full Scorecard
Bangalore
Batsmen Status Runs Balls 4s 6s S.Rate
Jesse Ryder c Mahesh Rawat b Dimitri Mascarenhas 0 2 0 0 0
Robin Uthappa (W) c Mahesh Rawat b Dimitri Mascarenhas 3 10 0 0 30
Ross Taylor b Dimitri Mascarenhas 0 1 0 0 0
Kevin Pietersen (C) c Niraj Patel b Tyron Henderson 32 30 4 0 106.67
Rahul Dravid c Shane Warne b Munaf Patel 66 48 8 1 137.5
Virat Kohli b Shane Warne 3 8 0 0 37.5
Balachandra Akhil b Shane Warne 9 9 1 0 100
Praveen Kumar c & b Munaf Patel 8 10 0 1 80
Vinay Kumar not out 8 2 2 0 400
Dale Steyn * not out 0 0 0 0
Anil Kumble
Extras: b – 0, w – 2, nb – 0, lb – 2 4
Total: (133 for 8 wickets in 20.0 overs) 133 Run Rate: 6.65
Fall of Wickets
1-0 (Jesse Ryder, 0.2), 2-0 (Ross Taylor, 0.3), 3-17 (Robin Uthappa, 4.5), 4-52 (Kevin Pietersen, 8.5), 5-63 (Virat Kohli, 11.5), 6-88 (Balachandra Akhil, 15.4), 7-119 (Praveen Kumar, 19.2), 8-125 (Rahul Dravid, 19.4)
Bowling (Jaipur)
Bowler O M R W nb wd R/O
Dimitri Mascarenhas 4 0 20 3 0 0 5
Kamran Khan 3 0 21 0 0 0 7
Munaf Patel 3 0 25 2 0 1 8.33
Tyron Henderson 4 0 30 1 0 0 7.5
Shane Warne 4 0 18 2 0 0 4.5
Yusuf Pathan 2 0 17 0 0 1 8.5
Power Play
Power Play 1 Overs: 1-6
Jaipur
Batsmen Status Runs Balls 4s 6s S.Rate
Graeme Smith c Rahul Dravid b Praveen Kumar 2 11 0 0 18.18
Swapnil Asnodkar c Virat Kohli b Praveen Kumar 0 2 0 0 0
Niraj Patel c Anil Kumble b Jesse Ryder 4 16 0 0 25
Tyron Henderson b Jesse Ryder 11 15 0 1 73.33
Yusuf Pathan c Jesse Ryder b Anil Kumble 11 14 1 0 78.57
Dimitri Mascarenhas run out (Virat Kohli) 0 1 0 0 0
Ravindra Jadeja c Virat Kohli b Anil Kumble 11 10 0 1 110
Shane Warne (C) st Robin Uthappa b Anil Kumble 3 9 0 0 33.33
Mahesh Rawat (W) not out 4 7 0 0 57.14
Munaf Patel c Dale Steyn b Anil Kumble 0 2 0 0 0
Kamran Khan c Robin Uthappa b Anil Kumble 3 5 0 0 60
Extras: b – 0, w – 7, nb – 1, lb – 1 9
Total: (58 for 10 wickets in 15.1 overs) 58 Run Rate: 3.82
Fall of Wickets
1-2 (Swapnil Asnodkar, 0.5), 2-7 (Graeme Smith, 3), 3-14 (Niraj Patel, 6.2), 4-28 (Tyron Henderson, 8.3), 5-28 (Dimitri Mascarenhas, 8.4), 6-47 (Yusuf Pathan, 11.1), 7-47 (Ravindra Jadeja, 11.2), 8-53 (Shane Warne, 13.3), 9-53 (Munaf Patel, 13.5), 10-58 (Kamran Khan, 15.1)
Bowling (Bangalore)
Bowler O M R W nb wd R/O
Praveen Kumar 3 0 7 2 1 2 2.33
Dale Steyn 2 0 6 0 0 3 3
Vinay Kumar 3 0 25 0 0 1 8.33
Jesse Ryder 4 0 14 2 0 1 3.5
Anil Kumble 3.1 1 5 5 0 0 1.58
Bangalore Royal Challengers always makes sure that they have some of the best cheerleaders to cheer the team. Last year Bangalore Royal Challengers owner and business tycoon Vijay Mallya had got the Washington Red Skins cheerleaders to cheer for the team. There were some conservative groups last year who protested the girls wearing skimpy outfits while cheering for the team. But the flamboyant Mallya did not succumb to anybody and had the hot cheerleaders throughout the tournament though a few other franchisees changed the dress of the cheerleaders. Vijay Mallya has dropped the Red Skin cheerleaders this year and hired 24 members of the US-based Varsity cheerleader group and renamed them “White Mischief Gals”. The girls have been named after his brand of vodka named “White Mischief”. According to the Mallya Company’s release the girls are “specially trained in flirty acrobatic skills for a scintillating on-field performance”. According to the release the White Mischief girls are “a little bit naughty, a little more hottie and a lot more mischievous”. Hope that the girls can motivate Kevin Pietersen and his team. Meanwhile Vijay Mallya will not be able to cheer his team from the start and he will come a week later as he wants to watch his Formula One team, Force India, compete in the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.
Here are two videos of the new White Mischief Gals
And here is a picture of the last year’s Red Skin cheerleaders
Andrew Flintoff is quite hopeful that his appearance in the IPL T20 season 2 will help him in learning a lot about the T20 game. Flintoff will be playing his first IPL match for Chennai Super Kings on April 18 against Mumbai Indians after CSK had bought him for $1.55 in the IPL auctions this year. Last year the English players were not allowed to play in IPL but four English players have been bought by the IPL franchisees this year including Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Flintoff has been suffering from injuries and problems for quite sometime but he thinks the IPL would help him revive his body once again. And he believes that this would help him immensely in preparations for the ICC Twenty20 World Cup in England which would follow the IPL. He also said that he would great benefit being in Chennai Super Kings as he would be able to learn from great players like Dhoni, Hayden and Muralidharan. He said that he would be speaking to the other Indian guys too and try to ‘pick their brains’. He believes that the league is a very good platform to exchange knowledge between the players and he will also benefit from it.
However, Flintoff is also worried that the English players should not reveal too much information about their team-mates while conversing with their IPL team-mates as that might be detrimental for England team. Flintoff’s second match would be against his English team-mate Kevin Pietersen’s side Bangalore Royal Challengers on April 20. Anyways lets wait and see how IPL would help Flintoff and how Flintoff would help IPL.
Sri Lankan captain and member of IPL team Kings XI Punjab Sangakkara feels that Buchanan’s captaincy idea can help in the evolution of cricket. John Buchanan who is the the coach of IPL T20 team Kolkata Knight Riders had suggested that there would be division of duties within four captains in the KKR team. Buchanan concept for Indian Premier League season 2 had made him a source of hatred in Kolkata and West Bengal as the local people could not accept the fact that the powers of the Prince of Kolkata Sourav Ganguly would be diluted. Buchanan had given the suggestion that KKR players like Chris Gayle, Brendon Mccullum and David Hussey should be given captaining responsibility alongside Dada.
Though Buchanan did not find much support amongst the Indian public with his new idea but Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara feels that the concept is quite good. He believes that this concept might come in handy for T20 cricket as the evolving nature of the game requires changes in various aspects including captaincy. However, Sangakkara also said that there might be several problems too in such a concept as four different captains might have ego clashes in the field which might be harmful for the team.
Meanwhile, IPL 2 has not been very helpful for the Indian icons with many of the franchisees stripping the Indian captains of their captaincy. Gilchrist will be the full time captain of Deccan Chargers team in IPL T20 season 2 after the DC franchisees replaced VVS Laxman with Gilly last year. Vijay Mallya’s Bangalore Royal Challengers have dropped Dravid as the captain of the team and instead made way for Kevin Pietersen and Jacques Kallis. The justification given by most franchisees and coach is that these changes are inevitable as T20 is a more youth oriented game. However, only time and the IPL T20 season 2 will tell how these decisions turn out to be.
