IPL6: The best moments from Delhi vs Rajasthan

Two of the four matches of the IPL 6 have already seen nail-biting finishes — the tournament couldn’t have asked for a better start. Rajasthan Royals played their first match of the tournament against the Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla and though we couldn’t get to see the debut of Sachin Baby, it was a pretty good result for the Royals — winning by five runs. Credit to Kevon Cooper of course, who bowled a stunning last over to win it for his team. The match had a fair share of its moments which made the game special. Here are a few of them. Mahela Jayawardene forgets his team: Rahul Dravid won the toss and decided to have a bat. SanjayManjerekar asked the usual questions about the pitch and team and that was enough to stump Jayawardene — who forgot his fourth overseas player’s name. The best part however, was Dravid helping him ever so generously: “It’s Johan Botha”. After all, Botha was a team-mate last season. [caption id=“attachment_689459” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sreesanth celebrates after taking Unmukt’s wicket. BCCI[/caption] Kushal Perera opening with Ajinkya Rahane: No one saw this coming. Rahane and Dravid’s partnership last season was the most successful opening pair, with 570 odd runs. But it was Perera who took first guard with Rahane. A hoick over mid wicket for four and a couple of hard cut-shots later, Perera and the Royals were well and truly up and running. Oh yes, did I say his shots were reminiscent of Sanath Jayasuriya? Dravid’s half century: Playing his first professional game in over a year (discounting the couple of T20 games he played for MCC), Dravid was not looking the most comfortable. The class though, was eminent. He was gifted a few chances, including Warner’s drop when on 41. There were also the ungainly swipes, ugly hoicks, under-edges, falling over on the crease — uncharacteristic of the man. But it’s the IPL and his 65 was critical for the Royals. The Wall stands tall regardless of the format. The Binny Shot: Stuart Binny played a manic innings of 40 runs from 20 balls, with some clean hitting. But there was nothing better than this shot — it was Botha’s 1st ball of the match, Binny took “throwing bat to ball” a bit too literally. He threw everything at the ball and the bat flew out of his hand towards square leg. It turned out to be very effective as the ball had somehow taken the outside edge of the bat, and ran away to the boundary. Kevin Pietersen who was being interviewed came up with this later: “I need to learn that shot”. Welcome back Sreesanth: S Sreesanth missed the entire IPL last year with injury. This was his first game in a long while and he was under everyone’s scanner. And he didn’t disappoint. He bowled pretty consistently, even giving glimpses of his out-swingers. And then came a typical Sreesanth moment — in in his 3rd over, he produced a peach of a delivery to clean up Unmukt Chand and put up one of the best celebratory poses seen in a long time. Yes, Sreesanth is back. Rahane’s “I am Jonty Rhodes” moment: New kid on the block Rahul Shukla had the ball. 22 years old, everyone was half expecting him to do a Bumrah. He started off in similar fashion, leaking a boundary on the 1st ball. But his final ball was full and outside off-stump, took Jayawardene’s leading edge and saw Rahane do his best Jonty impersonation and pulls out a stunner. We are very early into the season, but this is a “Catch of the Season” contender right away. And yes of course, Shukla did manage to do a Bumrah. David Warner drops Anchor: Warner is usually someone who would go slam bang right from the beginning, regardless of the format. But we saw a different Warner today, a circumspect one. He was happy giving Unmukt Chand the strike to face Samuel Badree, and never really forced the issue at any point of the match. His risks were calculated and it almost paid off for the Daredevils. Brad Hodge the captain turns it on: Dravid had cramped his legs while attempting to take a catch. So, Brad Hodge took over reins and produced two moments of brilliance on the field. First a good running catch to dismiss Juneja and a direct hit to get rid of dangerous fellow countryman David Warner. The run-out turned out to be the game changer for the Royals. Quote of the day – Kevin Pietersen: “I hate Team Meetings”. So do I, KP.