Tambe takes hattrick, Watson takes 3 as Knights slump to 5th defeat in IPL 7

Rajasthan Royals 170-6 (Karun 44, Samson 37, Narine 2-28) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 160-6 (Uthappa 65, Gambhir 54, Watson 3-21, Tambe 3-27) by 10 runs

A hattrick at the age of 42 years and 209 days, 6 wickets in a space of 8 balls, a stumping off a wide ball and finally a self defined batting collapse helped Rajasthan Royals miraculously turn the game around from the jaws of defeat to take the Royals to their 5th win in 7 games and help them to 10 points in the table.

Earlier in the day, Gautam Gambhir won the toss and elected to bowl first on a pitch that he thought would be easier to bat later in the evening. The pitch had little to offer for the bowlers but the Knight Riders managed to keep things under control after Rahane departed falling short of the crease for a 22-ball 30.

Rajasthan Royals’ batsman rotated the strike at will and kept wickets in hand for a late surge which eventually happened. They could have gone past 180 easily had the late strikes by Vinay Kumar and Sunil Narine not taken place. A last ball 6 by Rajat Bhatia took Royals to 170, a fighting total to defend on a flat track.

Motera, the second home of Royals lived to their reputation of a batting paradise as Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa started scoring boundaries at will. The half century stand came at the stroke of 6th over and the duo started to accelerate from there on. They converted 50 to 100 and attacked all the spots of the ground.

At 14th over, it looked like Kolkata would seal the match by the end of 18th over but as they say the name of the game is Cricket and Cricket is an unpredictable game. Watson removed Gambhir of the first ball of 15th over, a run-out chance was missed off the next ball, Robin Uthappa holed out to the deep in the next ball, a dot ball and then a slower that chopped Russel’s middle stump. 3 wickets and 1 run from the 15th over.

With two new batsmen at the crease, the ball was given to Pravin Tambe. He didn’t dissappoint as he dragged Manish Pandey out of the crease of a wide ball to get him stumped, followed it with a return catch from Yusuf Pathan and then plumbed Ryan ten Doeschate to pick up the hattrick and bring Royals from nowhere into the game. From 121-0 in 14 overs, KKR slipped to 123-6 in 15.2 overs.

Faulkner and Watson delivered brilliant death overs to make sure that Shakib Al-Hasan didn’t spoil the hardwork done by them and eventually sealed the game by 10 runs.