Watson belts Royals to win
11/05/2008 21:14  - (SA)  

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Jaipur - Australian all rounder Shane Watson belted an exuberant 74 from just 40 balls to propel the Rajasthan Royals to a convincing three-wicket win over the Delhi Daredevils in their IPL match on Sunday night.

Chasing a competitive 156-7 for victory, the table-topping Royals stormed to their seventh win in nine games to move clear at the top of the log with 14 points.

But, for once, it was a close and highly competitive game after what feels like weeks of one-sided and predictable encounters.

In the first innings Royals captain Shane Warne was the victim of an extraordinary late assault by Sri Lankan all rounder Farveez Maharoof which lifted the Delhi Daredevils to 156-7 having been tied down by excellent bowling through most of the 20 overs.

Maharoof hammered four sixes in Warne's fourth and final over which cost 27 runs and transformed the entire complexion of the innings.

Excellent return

The Aussie legend was due a bad day having been in outstanding form throughout the tournament and he appeared to be heading towards another excellent return but finished with figures of 4-0-47-0.

Maharoof finished with 39 from just 16 balls with a brace of fours to accompany his four maximums.

Englishman Dimitri Mascarenhas claimed 2-29 on debut for the Royals while Watson was even more impressive with 2-21 in his four overs as the Daredevils struggled early on.

But just when the Royals appeared to be coasting towards another victory they hit a considerable snag in Maharoof.

Both sides appeared to nose ahead on a couple of occasions during the run chase with Daredevils veteran Glenn McGrath (4-0-12-0) producing yet another extraordinary display of control and discipline to stifle the Royals top order. But in the end,

Watson's five fours and five sixes - which made him the leading six-hitter in the tournament - proved to be decisive.

Teams:

Rajasthan Royals: Graeme Smith, Yusuf Pathan, Mohammad Kaif, Shane Watson, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Niraj Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Shane Warne (captain), Mahesh Rawat, Siddharth Trivedi, Munaf Patel.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, AB de Villiers, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik, Amit Mishra, Farveez Maharoof, VY Mahesh, Glenn McGrath, Mohammad Asif, Pradeep Sangwan.

- SuperSport

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