Rajasthan Royals had the serendipity of scripting a glorious last-ball win in the DLF-IPL final in front of a full house at the D.Y. Patil Stadium here on Sunday. Unperturbed by the fall of a clutch of wickets and undaunted by the climbing run rate, the Jaipur outfit proceeded to dare the rival.
Yusuf Pathan (56, 39b) was the most daring batsman profited mostly from glaring lapses made on the field by Chennai Super Kings, especially by Suresh Raina and Manpreet Gony off his own bowling.
Pathan capitalised on the luck that came his way and secured the final victory for his team with a blazing knock that had four mighty sixes and three boundary shots and forged a crucial fourth wicket partnership with Shane Watson that fetched 65 runs.
Fittingly Shane Warne, who had moulded a team filled with rookies into a winning combination, was in the thick of action when the moment came, although it was the left-handed Sohail Tanvir who dispatched L. Balaji for a four off the last ball of the tournament.
Royals needed eight runs off the last over and Balaji was given the responsibility of bowling the make or mar over. He bowled a wide, and the eighth wicket pair managed to steer the side to a phenomenal triumph on the final day of the IPL.
Raina’s steady hands had worked efficiently to make good runs in the first session and then held a sharp catch at backward point. A catch that came off the bat of Pathan when Royals’ score was 75 for three was a regulation catch he would have taken 99 times out of 100.
It turned out be a costly lapse and perhaps the title too went down with it. Later he ran out Pathan with a direct hit, but by then Royals was within striking distance of the target.
Earlier Raina’s ingenuity and purposeful batting paved the way for Chennai Super Kings to post a modest total. It was a peculiar first session when the left hander was the lone batsman who came close to dominating the bowling. Mahendra Singh Dhoni added valuable runs in the end to take the total to 163.
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