Vintage Royals

Rookies,led by Rahane with 98,step it up as new skipper Dravid eases into Warnes shoes

Hundreds,or near hundreds in this case,rarely end in losses in the T20 format and Ajinkya Rahanes 98 helped Rahul Dravid ease into the seat vacated by Shane Warne at the helm of the Rajasthan Royals. Spare a thought for his counterpart at Kings XI Punjab though. Adam Gilchrist who doubles,triples and quadruples up as the sides captain,coach,wicket-keeper and opener could soon end up trumping MS Dhoni in the grizzly-scale,perhaps to wake up with a mop of shocking white hair soon.

To be fair to Gilchrist,the kind of innings that Rahane played robbed him of most options and whatever control he could have exercised evaporated with his bowlers remaining passive at the start and fraying rapidly at the death. The pitch sported a tinge of green,and the numbers Rajasthan vs. Orissa,the last match Ranji Trophy played here,saw spinners pick up just one of the 28 wickets perhaps convinced Gilchrist to stick Rajasthan in,and his bowlers to look for the fuller length in search for swing.

After playing Praveen Kumars first over out quietly,the openers Rahane and Dravid realised the wicket wasnt doing much.

Rahane then feasted on the full stuff,striking six boundaries of the nine balls he next faced,including four off one Praveen over. Praveen simply did not react to the changed circumstances,that the pitch did not have as much movement as first expected,and refused to fix what was clearly broke.

He stuck to the same full length and was,unsurprisingly,flayed by Rahane through the covers,square and fine on the on-side and straight down the ground,all in the same over.

When Faulkners full ball,the first of the fourth over,was thrashed by Dravid past mid-off,Rajasthans run-rate went past ten. Faulkner,unlike the more experienced Praveen,decided staring at the head lights was not the best course for a rabbit. He brought out the variations the back of the hand slower ball and changed his length the outside-the-off stump-bouncer but found himself taken off the attack by the end of that over. Praveen,given another over in the Power Play,proved a repeat offender as Dravid used the bowlers fuller length to whip him from outside off to the fine leg fence.

Double strike

It was no coincidence that Harmeet Singh replaced Praveen during the only period that Gilchrist had a chance of turning the match around. Harmeet,lacking Praveens movement,is a cannier bowler and for close to five overs after Dravids boundary off Praveen,helped peg the batsman back. Dravids repeated attempts to shuffle across and work the ball on the onside did not work against better lengths and change of pace while Rahane was forced to look to the off-side for runs. Dravid and Ashok Menaria fell in successive overs.

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Runs still came,but not at the previous clip and Rahane,who had played and missed a few times and looked like he just might throw it away in that stretch. Just when an opening seemed to materialise,the bowling turned errant,allowing Rahane to regroup. Chawla,Paul Valthaty and Bipul Sharma fed him a steady drip of full,short and wide deliveries and Rahane was always there to make them pay. When he fell in the final over,Rajasthan had 191 on the board.

The total was always going to prove too much and after Gilchrist fell by which time he was reduced to helplessly,gloriously,throwing his bat around early,Punjab went down swinging,with Kevon Cooper,who marked his IPL debut with a three-ball 11 in the final over,finishing with four wickets.

Pre-match,Dravid had earmarked Cooper,Rahane,Menaria and Ankit Chavan for big roles this season and within a few hours,it seemed he had turned prophetic. It is just his first match and captaincy will not be always this easy. He will just have to look across to the visitors dugout to realise that.