Lucknow, 22 April. Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium witnessed a low-scoring match amid dominance of the bowlers on Wednesday night. Well, the experienced Ravindra Jadeja gave an all-round performance as per his nature and it benefited Rajasthan Royals (RR), who also managed to defend 159 runs and put themselves at the second position in the points table with an impressive win of 40 runs with 12 balls to spare in the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL-19).

Rajasthani team reached 159 runs after two partnerships of Jadeja.

Rajasthan team, forced to bat first, was in trouble after losing five wickets at 77 amid the departure of top stars including Yashasvi and Vaibhav. But ‘Player of the Match’ Jadeja (43 not out, 29 balls, one six, two fours) took charge at the critical time and with the help of his two useful partnerships, the team reached 159 runs for six wickets.

Jofra Archer and company scattered Lucknow team for 119

In response, Joffra Archer (3-20) and Nandre Berger (2-27) shook the top order of the Super Giants, while Brijesh Sharma (2-18), Jadeja (1-29) and Ravi Bishnoi (1-23) did not give the middle and lower order a chance to settle at the crease. The result was that despite opener Mitchell Marsh’s half-century effort (55 runs, 41 balls, two sixes, six fours), the host team was out for 119 runs in 18 overs.

Rajasthan jumped to second position, Lucknow slipped to ninth position.

If seen, the Rajasthan Royals team, which was on top of the points table by winning the first four matches, had slipped a bit due to two consecutive defeats. But with the help of this fifth win in seven matches, it has again jumped to second place with 10 points. At the same time, due to fourth consecutive and fifth defeat in seven matches, Lucknow Super Giants team, which had to face third consecutive defeat on home ground, has now slipped to ninth place with four points.

Badoni, Pant and Markram could not even open their accounts.

The Lucknow team, chasing a relatively low score, had a disastrous start when Ayush Badoni, captain Rishabh Pant and Aiden Markram could not even open the account and were all out for 11 runs in three overs. In these, Badoni was run out, Pant was returned by Berger and Markram was returned by Archer.

score card

However, opener Marsh tried to handle the matter with two partnerships of 43 runs with Nicholas Pooran (22 runs, 25 balls, three fours) and 37 runs with Himmat Singh (15 runs, 15 balls, one six). But after completing his half-century, when Marsh returned to Berger’s ball in the 16th over, the innings collapsed and the last five batsmen returned within 14 runs.

Rajasthan’s top order failed for the second time in three matches

Earlier, this was the second occasion in three matches for Rajasthan Royals when their top order failed. In front of senior pacers Mohammed Shami (2-30) and Mohsin Khan (2-17), openers Yashasvi Jaiswal (22 runs, 12 balls, four fours), Vaibhav Suryavanshi (eight runs, 11 balls, two fours) and Dhruv Jurel (zero) had to return to the same score i.e. 32. Among them, Shami hunted Yashasvi and Jurel while Mohsin did not let Vaibhav go too far.

Half of Rajasthan team had returned at 77 runs.

After this, Ryan Parag (20 runs, 19 balls, one six, two fours) along with Shimron Hetmyer (22 runs, 18 balls, one six, two fours) took the score to 62, when Prince Yadav (2-29) dismissed Parag. After Jadeja’s departure, Hetmyer also returned in the 11th over (5-77).

Jadeja made two useful partnerships with Ferreira and Shubham.

But Jadeja showed his experienced hands when needed. He made a partnership of 33 runs with Donovan Ferreira (20 runs, 19 balls, two fours) and then made an unbroken partnership of 49 runs with Shubham Dubey (19 runs not out, 11 balls, three fours), taking the team’s score to 159. In the end this score proved enough to defend.

thursday match : : Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings (Mumbai, 7.30 pm).