Royal thrashing at the Kotla

Nothing goes right

As for the Royals, it isn’t hard to see why they are considered the David in this tournament of Goliaths. Take opening partners over the last couple of days: Brendon McCullum and Sourav Ganguly for Kolkata; Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer for Bangalore; Parthiv Patel and Matthew Hayden for Chennai; Karan Goel and James Hopes for Mohali. All apart from Goel have played Test cricket.

In true little-guy tradition, the Rajasthan Royals started off with Taruwar Kohli and Yusuf Pathan. In true little-guy tradition, they threw caution to the wind — playing and missing and edging and slicing for a couple of overs before luck ran out. A Kohli mishit only went as far as Mithun Manhas at short-midwicket and Glenn McGrath had begun establishing some order in this bat-heavy format. His first 12 deliveries had gone for seven runs — one six and one wide.

Communication breakdown

In the next over, Pathan walked across to Shane Watson for a mid-pitch chat after almost getting run-out — what would that conversation have gone like? By all indications, not very well — he was run out two balls later. Watson looked capable of setting things right, but even he was run out after some more poor calling. For those few moments, the Royals seemed to be answering the big IPL question: How do locals communicate with foreign players? They don’t.

Darren Lehmann didn’t pull his weight in the middle-order, while Mohammad Kaif struggled to find the middle of his bat.

The only thing of note in the rest of the innings: Number eight Dinesh Salunkhe walked across his stumps to paddle McGrath over the wicketkeeper’s head for a boundary. Salunkhe is yet to play a first-class game and would’ve enjoyed that bit of disrespect he showed to one of the legends of the game.

PS: This is the Indian Premier League, and before the game, there’s the entertainment. While it’s too early to run the rule on the pre-game shows at various venues, here’s pretty much what the Daredevil effort entailed. BMX riders rode around the stadium, spinning across ramps placed on boundary ropes. As the crowds started trickling in, a group of gymnasts twisted around a specially built stage… nothing exceptional. Akshay Kumar then made a grand entry, flying across the Kotla on flaming wires. Three of the Rajasthan Royals stopped their pre-match warm-up session to click pictures. As the diversions were wrapping up, a stray dog ran across the field — and got a fair share of cheers as well.