Johan Botha put in an impressive all-round performance to guide Rajasthan Royals to a crushing seven-wicket win over Mumbai Indians in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Friday. The South African off-spinner finished with 3-6 off two overs to help Rajasthan restrict Mumbai to their lowest IPL total of 94-8 and then scored 45 to shape his team’s victory with 11 balls to spare.
It was Rajasthan’s fourth win in eight matches and Mumbai’s second defeat in seven games of the Twenty20 tournament. In another match, Virat Kohli smashed a 42-ball 67 with the help of four sixes and West Indies opener Chris Gayle a brisk 49 off 26 balls to set up Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 26-run victory over Pune Warriors. Pune finished on 155-5 chasing a 182-run target to suffer their fifth defeat in seven matches.
New Zealander Jesse Ryder top-scored with a 34-ball 51 for Pune and skipper Yuvraj Singh cracked 41 off 23 balls with the help of three sixes. Mumbai still lead the league table with 10 points while Bangalore and Rajasthan each have nine points. Botha earlier struck with his third delivery when he trapped West Indies batsman Kieron Pollard lbw before accounting for Australian Andrew Symonds and Rajagopal Sathish in his next over. Symonds top-scored with 17 in Mumbai’s dismal batting show. There were just two sixes and four boundaries in the entire Mumbai innings.
Mumbai’s Harbhajan Singh, who took a short first run and returned for a second in a bid to keep the strike in the final over, hit a last-ball six off seamer Shane Watson. Rajasthan owed their victory to spinners, with Shane Warne and Ashok Menaria also playing crucial roles in restricting Mumbai. Warne conceded just 13 runs off four overs and left-arm spinner Menaria 20 runs, sharing three wickets in the process. Menaria, who opened the attack, bagged two of the first three wickets, including that of skipper Sachin Tendulkar, to send Mumbai reeling at 46-3 in the opening nine overs.
He had Tendulkar stumped for seven runs and then held a return catch to dismiss Ambati Rayudu (11) before Warne put more pressure on Mumbai when he had Rohit Sharma (13) caught by Botha at long-off.
Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians 94-8 in 20 overs (A. Symonds 17; J. Botha 3-6, A. Singh 2-14, A. Menaria 2-20) lost to Rajasthan Royals 95-3 in 18.1 overs (J. Botha 45, S. Watson 26; M. Patel 2-18) by seven wickets. Royal Challengers Bangalore 181-5 in 20 overs (V. Kohli 67, C. Gayle 49, AB de Villiers 26; A. Thomas 2-23, R. Sharma 2-27) beat Pune Warriors 155-5 in 20 overs (J. Ryder 51, Yuvraj Singh 41, R. Uthappa 23 not out) by 26 runs.
