It was the Rajasthan Royals that have kept themselves on the top of the points table since almost the start of the tournament. Today however, it will be the Kings XI team which will proceed in to the semi-finals with more confidence and this will be due to the win that they achieved today against the top team. The win came for them by a good margin of 41 runs.
As usual, the Rajasthan Royals on winning the toss chose to field first. The Kings XI Punjab did not get discouraged. They rather took to attacking in their batting performance and they did that very well too. Marsh and Hopes came out to open the innings of the team. The play of these batsmen was overwhelming and one could see the strokes and shots were no less than brilliant.
The first wicket lost was only in the fourteenth over of Hopes after he had scored 51 runs off 62 balls. Marsh would have remained unbeaten in his innings but for the dismissal by Watson in the twentieth over. He scored 115 runs off 93 balls before dismissal. Yuvraj Singh who came in after Hopes, made 49 runs off 38 balls and the team score went up to 221 runs.
The batting order of the Rajasthan team however toppled with the captain taking rest for the day. Shane Warne and Sohail Tanvir took an off from the game and meanwhile the team was crashing. Opener Kaif was dismissed for a single. Patel managed to survive for 57 runs. Younis khan could make just 3 while the middle order remained in double figures but no individual score was as big so as to get the team victory. Pathan was the next highest scorer after Patel with 39 runs. The final score that the team could make was 180 runs and lost the match. Marsh undoubtedly was awarded man of the match.
