Rajasthan Royals surge to second win

Rajasthan Royals executed a well-calibrated chase against an off-colour Delhi Daredevils attack to register their second win in two games and move atop the IPL leaderboard. The senior players soaked the pressure - Rahul Dravid set up the platform and Johan Botha anchored things in the middle - while the youngsters, Ashok Menaria and Ajinkya Rahane, batted with freedom to keep the required rate under control. Ross Taylor finished things off with his trademark leg-side lashes.

While Rajasthan's batting flowed along seamlessly, their bowling was a tale of two halves. Their fortunes were typified by Shaun Tait's four one-over spells. His first two overs got rid of Virender Sehwag and Aaron Finch - two parts of Delhi's powerful top-order trinity. David Warner, the third part, survived Tait and saw off a sublime spell from Shane Warne before counter-punching along with Venugopal Rao. Tait was too short in the third over and too full in his fourth, and Delhi tucked in, hauling themselves from 43 for 4 after 10 overs, to 151. Their bowlers, however, let them down badly.

"I am used to facing all these fast bowlers." - Sehwag's emphatic declaration before the game set the tone for a delicious confrontation with Tait. The encounter was, however, over before you could blink. Sehwag cracked his first ball through point but Tait hit back immediately with sheer pace. Taking guard after Sehwag's sizzle and fizzle, Finch barely saw three thunderbolts - one of them touching 157 kph - that burst through his defences. One over of high impact - one spell out of the way.

Botha and Siddharth Trivedi were not so menacing with the ball, and Tait returned for the fifth over. Finch promptly succumbed to another pacy bouncer, and Tait was off the attack again. Warne struck twice in his first over, nailing Unmukt Chand with a quick dipping legspinner, and Naman Ojha with a slower, looping delivery. Thereafter, Rajasthan let the pressure ease off, allowing Warner and Rao to find an escape route. Rao checked in with a couple of controlled boundaries against spin before Warner preyed upon Trivedi's poor lines, as things began to brighten for Delhi.

Tait began his third over with short balls on the body, and included an over-pitched delivery on the stumps, all of which Warner plundered for boundaries. He reached his 50 by cutting Warne in front of square before handing over the baton to his partner. Rao launched two successive slower balls from Trivedi for sixes over the off side, before Irfan Pathan slugged boundaries off Tait's closing over to hustle Delhi into a challenging position.

Dravid ignited the chase with a series of boundaries off the erratic Ashok Dinda, but Amit Paunikar missed a wild slog to gift him a wicket. Irfan Pathan had shown signs of regaining his famous inswinger in Delhi's first game. Today, however, he resorted to listless offcutters that Dravid punished for a six and two fours. With his seamers disappointing, Sehwag resorted to Roelof van der Merwe's spin for the sixth over, and Dravid greeted him with two elegant boundaries. Fifty-seven off the Powerplay, and the game was heading Rajasthan's way.

van der Merwe gave Delhi an opening by getting Dravid to edge behind, but Botha and Menaria carried on without a fuss. With a stance and swagger reminiscent of Yuvraj Singh, Menaria camped on the backfoot and looked to muscle anything too short or too full over midwicket. He thumped sixes off three consecutive overs before carving Irfan straight to cover. Botha was relentless though, in his new No. 3 avatar, executing paddle sweeps at will and keeping things under control. Rahane joined in the fun, battering Irfan over midwicket and edging van der Merwe through third man. Morne Morkel uprooted Rahane's stumps in the 16th over, but it was too late to affect the course of the game.