Yusuf Pathan's Super Performance gives Rajasthan Victory in a tied game

Rajasthan Royals Vs Kolkatta Knight Riders - Match 10 - Newlands, Cape Town - Bulletin

Yusuf Pathan powered Rajasthan Royals to victory in the super over with his power hitting in the tenth match of DLF IPL 2. In what was easily the best match of this IPL season, Kolkatta won the toss and elected to field in a track which seemed to help the slower bowlers. Rajasthan didn't have the greatest starts loosing the wickets of Valthaty and Quiney early. Smith and Yusuf Pathan started consolidating the innings with smith trying to play the sheet anchor role and Yusuf going bang band. But Ajantha Mendis making his IPL debut started off with a bang by capturing the wickets of both Smith and the dangerous looking Yusuf. But Rajasthan reached a total of 150 with useful contributions from Jadeja, Mascarenhas and Raut. As far as Kolkatta bowling was concerned, Mendis, Anureet Singh and Ishant picked two wickets apiece with Mendis being the best of the lot.

Kolkatta started off their chase with Gayle going berserk and contributing 41 off 33 balls, but wickets kept falling consistently at the other end with McCullum, Shukla and Hodge not contributing much towards Kolkatta's score. With the scoreboard reading 94/5 at the end of fourteenth over Kolkatta was in dire posistion and needed a special innings to bail them out of the situation. And this special innings came from none other than our beloved Dada who along with Yashpal singh almost fetched Kolkatta the win. With 7 runs needed of 6 balls and Ganguly on strike Kolkatta were the favourites to win the game, and Shane Warne handed the ball to young Kamran Khan. The last over read this way wd, 1, 1, 0, 2lb, Dada's wicket, 1+ Ishant's run out. The match ended in tie and the result had to decided by the super over.

The following was the line up for the super over
Kolkatta
Batsmen - Gayle, McCullum and Ganguly
Bowler - Ajantha Mendis

Rajasthan
Batsmen - Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja and Mascarenhas
Bowler - Kamran Khan

According to the Super Over Rule, Kolkatta went in to bat first and scored 15 runs which included 3 boundaries from Chris Gayle's bat. The super over read 1, 1, Wd, 4, 4, 4, Wicket of Gayle. With 16 runs to win Yusuf Pathan hit the first ball of Ajantha Mendis for a Six over long off. The Second ball is what i believe lost Kolkatta the game, Yusuf skied one toward long off, but Hodge who came running from long on made a mess of it and two runs were scored. The next two balls went for a six and a four and Rajasthan clinched a thriller, thanks to Yusuf Pathan.

Toss:
Kolkatta Knight Riders won the toss and elected to field

Teams:
Kolkatta Knight Riders
C Gayle, B McCullum, S Ganguly, B Hodge, Sanjay Bangar, LR Shukla, Yashpal Singh, A Agarkar, Ajantha Mendis, I Sharma, Anureet Singh
Rajasthan Royals
G Smith, PC Valthaty, R Quiney, AS Raut, Y Pathan, D Mascarenhas, R Jadeja, S Warne, M Rawat, M Patel, Kamran Khan

Brief Scores:
Rajasthan Royals - 150/6 in 20 overs(Y Pathan - 42, Mascarenhas - 27, S Ganguly - 2/19, A Singh - 2/35)
Kolkatta Knight Riders - 150/8 in 20 overs(S Ganguly - 46, C Gayle - 41, Kamran Khan - 3/18, S Warne - 2/25)

Result:
Rajasthan Royals won the match in Super over.