Royals rout Kings

Jaipur: At the end of the day it was a good toss that Rahul Dravid won for Rajasthan Royals. It was productive because the bowlers responded well after he opted to field first. Chasing a rather easy target of 125 after dismissing Kings XI Punjab for 124 with seven balls to spare in their IPL 6 match at Sawai Man Singh Stadium here on Sunday, the host romped home with six wickets in hand. However, Rajasthan did suffer midway hiccups when it lost quick wickets despite a fine start. Eventually, they accomplished the target with four balls to spare. Shane Watson gave a flying start to the chase while steering the team to forty runs in four overs. But he fell soon to Parvinder Awana. After losing Dravid and Stuart Binny things appeared difficult. er after his 43-run stand with Ajinkya Rahane, who earlier put on 43 runs with Watson emerged as the man of the hour with a fine counter-attack. His unbeaten 34 was all that was required for Rajasthan to a win. Earlier, in their innings, Punjab batsmen appeared clueless on handling the genuine attack that flowed from either end. With wickets falling at regular intervals, it seemed unlikely that the visitors would pose any challenging total or make a match of it. Between them, S Sreesanth (2/20), Siddharth Trivedi (2/21), James Faulkner (2/30) and Kevon Cooper (2/33) finished off the Punjab batting, which was reduced to mediocre levels. David Hussey top-scored with a 31-ball 41 and Azhar Mahmood made 23 from 20 balls. Sreesanth fired the first salvo by scalping the first two wickets both in the second over that began the batting collapse. There was no end to the misery of skipper Adam Gilchrist as he became the first victim of Sreesanth, who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The Kerala pacer later accounted for Mandeep Singh. Manan Vohra was run out by a direct hit from Faulkner to leave Kings XI in the lurch at ten for the loss of three wickets. Hussey and Gurkeerat Singh (10) shared 35 runs off 31 balls for the fourth wicket before the latter fell to Trivedi. Brief Scores: Kings XI Punjab: 124 all out in 18.5 overs (David Hussey 41, Azhar Mahmood 23; S. Sreesanth 2/20, Siddharth Trivedi 2/21) lost to Rajasthan Royals 126 for four (Ajinkya Rahane 34no, Shane Watson 32, Sanju Samson 27no, Praveen Kumar 2/10).