Shane Watt-son Mega Watt performance

Well one sight on yesterday's match between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals suggests that the Rajasthan Royals would have an easy won the match. But, I wonder how many of them would have thought the Rajasthan Royals would have won the match without losing even a single wicket and Shane Watson belting a 47 ball 89 run. The moment the Mumbai Indians ended their innings for 133 on the board, it was more or less understood that they would end up losing. But, something which was not thought about was the even with Lasith Malinga they couldn't grab a single wicket.

There were two Mumbaikars in Rohith Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar who did something for the Mumbai Indians' side by emerging as the top batsmen of the game scoring 31 and 58 respectively. But, as it already evident by now, that was of no use to the team. All that those scores could do was to save the face for the Mumbai Indians without which the total would not have even crossed 100. One has to wonder why the Mumbai Indians preserved 5 wickets when no one had the guts to belt the bowling of the opposition. Why was Franklin sent ahead of Symonds?

Symonds was a bigger hitter than Franklin and Harbhajan. One has to applaud the Rajasthan Royals' captain for experimenting with his bowlers and at the same time criticize him for failing in his experiment. There were four bowlers from the Rajasthan Royals' side who bowled their complete quota of 4 overs and much to anyone's surprise, they all ended up successful. But, the ones who didn't get to complete their full quota of 4 overs, namely Siddhart Trivedi, Maneria and Amit Singh bowled the costliest of over giving away runs at the rate of 9.00, 10.00 and 12.00 runs respectively.

However, there is not much that can be written about the batting performance of the Rajasthan Royals which was finished by just two batsmen - Dravid and Watson. Watson's 47 ball 89 might not be of that great interest but, his combo of 3 wickets and 89 runs definitely falls into the best of all-round performances. There were 7 over to spare for the Rajasthan Royals which could have been compensated in case of a rain affected match. With this, Shane Warne could be last match in the IPL and he has outplayed his famous rival-Sachin Tendulkar. Just a gr8 way to finish a splendid career.

Not a fair play from RR

Well if it is only the result of the match that matters, then, there might have not been so many cricket crazy fans out there cheering for every shot that goes out of the ground and every ball that breaks the stumps no matter which player from which team is responsible in doing it so as long as there is entertainment on the field. But, that was no way the case in yesterday's game between the Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians. A score of 94 from 20 overs should either deserve a better response from the opposition or else the track should be fit for a test match.

In the first innings which was played by the Mumbai Indians (as far as the batting team goes), they as mentioned neither lose all their ten wickets nor did they do a big hitting despite the likes of Sachin Tendulkar being there. Other names that promise good run include Andrew Symonds, Rohith Sharma and Kieron Pollard. Of course, other batsmen too have their names felt but, not yesterday. Even Harbhajan Singh might have added to the delight with the bat. But, there was no batsman in the Mumbai Indians' side who could get a score past 20 runs with the highest being Symonds' 17.

Should one come to the conclusion that the Rajasthan Royals were on the top of their bowling with the army consisting of Shane Warne including Ashok Menaria, Shane Watson and Johan Botha? If that was so, then one should think for a reason for the Rajasthan Royals not to have grabbed all ten wickets from the Mumbai side which saw them play until the 120^th legal delivery may be no avail which forms a different issue. Another point to ponder over is that the Rajasthan Royals' batsmen came until the last two overs to reach the target which was achieved in the 19^th over.

A tough opponent would have chased down the target in just 15 overs with just over run a ball which also happens to be much. An ideal approach would be 11 overs at 9.0 runs an over. One aspect that needs to be digested is that despite grabbing 3 wickets at a rate of 3.0 runs an over, Johan Botha was given only two overs to bowl when he could have been given two more overs. On the other hand, Shane Watson was allowed to complete his full quota of 4 overs despite being the 2^nd costliest bowler after Siddharth Trivedi who was restricted to juts 2 overs.