IPL24: Rajasthan Royals ride on Parag power to beat Delhi Capitals by 12 runs

 

The team that plays at their home ground , wins.  That happened in the first nine matches of the IPL 2024.  Delhi Capitals lost yet another match.  Rajasthan Royals won their second match in Jaipur.  Batting first, Rajasthan scored 185 runs.  In reply, Delhi's innings ended with 173 runs.

 Delhi captain Rishabh Pant won the toss and sent Rajasthan into bat.  He thought he would take advantage of batting later.  Because the spinners face difficulties when bowling later in Jaipur ground due to dew.  But that was not the case on Thursday.  As on the other side there was a spinner like Yuzvendra Chahal.  He took 2 wickets with 19 runs in 3 overs.  Chahal played a big role behind Rajasthan's victory with the ball.

 Rajasthan Royals lost the wickets of Jaiswal and Jos Buttler early on when they came to bat.  From there Ravichandran Ashwin, Ryan Parag kept the team fighting.  Ashwin was sent by Rajasthan after three wickets fell in the beginning.  That trick worked.  Ashwin took the pressure  Dhruv Jurel to get quick runs.

On this day, Delhi Capitals kept Mukesh Kumar in the first eleven.  The Bengal fast bowler blew the stumps of Jaiswal (5) in his first over.  After that, Sanju Samson (15) and Buttler (11) went back to the dressing room one by one.  Rajasthan lost 3 wickets for 36 runs.  At that time Ashwin came to bat.  The Indian spinner played an important innings of 29 runs off 19 balls.  He hit three sixes.  Two of these were against South African pacer Nortje.

 Ashwin's innings took the pressure off young Parag.  He started to score fast and suddenly started to hit big shots including some huge sixes .  Rajasthan could not use the power play.  It had no effect but Parag later found his bearings   Parag took 25 runs off Nortje in the last over.  He himself scored 84 runs off 45 balls and remained unbeaten.  Jurel accompanied him by scoring 20 runs off 12 balls.  Shimron Hetmyer remains unbeaten with 14 runs off 7 balls.

 Jaiswal and Butler were seen playing big innings for Rajasthan in the last IPL.  Sanju also scored runs in some matches.  According to many, if these three cricketers do not get runs, Rajasthan cannot score big runs.  Another Rajasthan player was seen on Thursday as Parag played a breathtaking knock against a quality Delhi attack consisting of all international players . Rajasthan scored big runs due to the power of the middle order.

 Delhi did get off to a good start chasing that run.  Mitchell Marsh was out for 23 runs after looking in ominous touch smashing 4s & 6s and Warner scored quickly too but Marsh was bowled by a fast delivery of Burger .  Ricky Bhui did not get a run as he got a fierce short ball from Burger which he fended for an easy ball .  Pant scored only 28 runs and  did not look in rhytm .  Opener David Warner scored 49 runs playing some breathtaking shots .  He was leading the innings of the team.  But Abesh Khan finally  dismissed him.  Bengal's Abhishek Porel did not get going in this match.  He scored only 9 runs as an impact player.

 Tristrian Stubbs and Akshar Patel kept Delhi's hopes alive in the last overs.  They were trying to win for the team.  Stubbs was playing big shots.  But Avesh and Sandeep Sharma bowled superbly in the last three overs.  Avesh bowled the last over.  Delhi needed 17 runs to win.  Avesh gave only 4 runs.  He won the match with a brilliant last over as Delhi ended 12 short. 

Riyan Parag after his breathtaking innings was the player of the match .