Warne, Pathan spell doom for Hyderabad yet again (IPL Match 30: Rajasthan Royals V Deccan Chargers)

VVS Laxman's loss didn't seem to have done Hyderabad any harm. They won the previous game against Chennai, and against Jaipur, they clearly had the upper hand, before throwing the game away, and perhaps their chances of making the semi-finals with their nine-wicket loss at the Sawai Man Singh stadium here on Friday.


Needing virtually a win from every game, Hyderabad, with only two in their bag, went to fortress Jaipur — they are the only ones to have not lost a single game at home — and started off in fine fashion before Jaipur's duo of Shane Warne and Yusuf Pathan, who were Hyderabad's nemesis in a remarkable run chase in the first leg, made short work of their opponents to go top of the IPL points table.


Warne crippled Hyderabad with a fantastic spell of 2-19 to keep them down to 140-8 — after being 74-1 in 10 overs — before Yusuf Pathan made it one-way traffic with a belligerent 37-ball 68 as Jaipur got home with four overs to spare.


Yusuf, back opening in the innings, put on 109 with Graeme Smith (40) as Hyderabad ran out of ideas to contain either, finally getting Yusuf in the 13th over, while RP Singh, Hyderabad's best bowler on the night, was rewarded with Smith's wicket with Jaipur just eight runs adrift from their target.


Sohail Tanvir didn't quite have the outing he was hoping for after his six-wicket haul here, but it was the trickery of the masterful Warne and yet another impressive performance from Siddharth Trivedi (1-8), the medium-pacer, that caught Hyderabad off guard, who let slip a fantastic start.


After being put in to bat, Adam Gilchrist belted his second successive half-century while captaining his side as he and Herschelle Gibbs blazed away to their best start of the tournament, reaching their 50 in the sixth over, before the talismanic Shane Warne yet again inspired his side to stage a remarkable turnaround.


Gibbs, who had previously disappointed with the bat, just about broke the shackles with a trademark cover drive before Munaf Patel removed him next ball for 19, before Hyderabad lost their way in the middle overs, if there is any room for the term in the shortest form of the game.


Gilchrist carried the charge to reach his second half-century of the tournament, along with a hundred, but was sent back by Trivedi for 61 before Warne figured in four dismissals, including Rohit Sharma's run out, a batsman who has been a model of consistency for the otherwise inconsistent Hyderabad outfit.


The wily leg-spinner brought himself on immediately after the first six overs and worked his magic, choking off the runs as Jaipur struck an unusual sequence. Having taken just one wicket in 12 overs, Warne struck in the 13th, while a wicket each fell in the 14th, 15th, 16th and the 17th. The sequence ended in the 18th over, but Warne got back into the act in the 19th.


Jaipur's five-match winning streak came to an end in Mumbai, while Hyderabad were on a high after posting a win in Chennai.


Besides the absence of Laxman, Hyderabad made one change to their side, including Ravi Teja in place of Arjun Yadav, while Jaipur excluded in-form Swapnil Asnodkar to draft in Niraj Patel at the top of the order.


Teams:


Hyderabad: Adam Gilchrist (captain), Ravi Teja, Herschelle Gibbs, Rohit Sharma, Scott Styris, Shahid Afridi, Venugopal Rao, Sanjay Bangar, RP Singh, Vijay Kumar, Pragyan Ojha.


Jaipur: Shane Warne (captain), Graeme Smith, Niraj Patel, Yusuf Pathan, Shane Watson, Mohammad Kaif, Ravindra Jadeja, Sohail Tanvir, Mahesh Rawat, Siddharth Trivedi, Munaf Patel.