Clinical performance by Challengers (restrict Royals at 130)

Jaipur, April 14: A well-planned effort by Royal Challengers’ bowlers proved too much for Rajasthan Royals, who crumbled under pressure and could only manage a target of 130/6 in their game here tonight.
For the visiting side, Pankaj Singh, who was playing against his former team, picked up two wickets for 27 runs while Dale Steyn once again bowled aggressively to share a wicket each with Jacques Kallis and Vinay Kumar.
None of the Royals’ batsmen could pass the fifty mark and got out once getting set. A 58-run partnership for the seventh wicket between Adam Voges (28 off 27 balls) and Abhishek Raut (30 off 20 balls) took them to a respectable score.
Earlier, Anil Kumble began the bowling for the Challengers after Shane Warne won the toss and elected to bat first.
Michael Lumb (9 off 8 balls) ran himself out second time in a row. Everyone could see the ball going straight to Kallis’ hands except him. He was followed by Amit Paunikar, making a golden duck in his debut match. The short Vidharbha batsman gave a simple catch to Robin Uthappa behind the wickets.
Naman Ojha (7 off 9 balls), after some good runs in the middle of the event was back to his inconsistent form. He was too cautious from the beginning and paid the price for it when he tried to play a lofted shot in the on-side off Pankaj Singh, but could not control it, giving a simple catch to Manish Pandey at mid-on.
Watson took time initially but started playing the attacking game once he got his eye in. But his 25-ball 22 came to a premature end after Pietersen took a good low catch at square leg off Kallis. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala’s wicket at mid-off to Anil Kumble gave a sigh of relief to everyone in the stadium. His 13-run (22 balls) innings was neither taking him nor his team anywhere.
Shane Warne was expecting a big innings from hard-hitting Yousuf Pathan, who started off well with two fours off Pankaj Singh but did not have any answer to Dale Steyn’s full length straight delivery, which rattled his stumps.
Voges and Raut played sensibly to take their score to 130.