Johan Botha put in an impressive all-round performance to guide the Rajasthan Royals to a crushing seven-wicket win over the Mumbai Indians in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Friday.
The South Africa off-spinner finished with three for six off two overs to help Rajasthan restrict Mumbai to their lowest IPL total of 94-8 and then Botha scored 45 to shape his team’s victory with 11 balls to spare.
It was Rajasthan’s fourth win in eight matches and Mumbai’s second defeat in seven games of the Twenty20 tournament.
Photo: AFP
In Friday’s other match, Virat Kohli smashed a 42-ball 67 with the help of four sixes and West Indies opener Chris Gayle smashed a brisk 49 off 26 balls to set up Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 26-run victory over the Pune Warriors.
Pune finished on 155-5 chasing a 182-run target to suffer their fifth defeat in seven matches.
New Zealand’s Jesse Ryder top-scored with a 34-ball 51 for Pune and skipper Yuvraj Singh cracked 41 off 23 balls with the help of three sixes.
Mumbai still lead the league with 10 points, while Bangalore and Rajasthan both have nine.
Botha earlier struck with his third delivery when he trapped West Indies batsman Kieron Pollard leg before wicket, before accounting for Australian Andrew Symonds and Rajagopal Sathish in his next over.
Symonds top-scored with 17 in Mumbai’s dismal batting show. There were just two sixes and four boundaries in the entire Mumbai innings.
Mumbai’s Harbhajan Singh, who took a short first run and returned for a second in a bid to keep the strike in the final over, hit a last-ball six off seamer Shane Watson.
Rajasthan owed their victory to their spinners, with Shane Warne and Ashok Menaria playing crucial roles in restricting Mumbai.
Warne conceded just 13 runs off four overs and left-arm spinner Menaria 20 runs, sharing three wickets in the process.
Menaria, who opened the attack, bagged two of the first three wickets, including that of skipper Sachin Tendulkar, to send Mumbai reeling at 46-3 in the opening nine overs.
He had Tendulkar stumped for 7 and then held a return catch to dismiss Ambati Rayudu (11), before Warne put more pressure on Mumbai when he had Rohit Sharma (13) caught by Botha at long-off.
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