Rajasthan stutter to 140

Chennai Super Kings v Rajasthan Royals, IPL, Kimberley

Bulletin by Shwe Wai

20 overs Rajasthan Royals 140 for 7 (Smith 30, Jadeja 27, Muralitharan 2-22) v Chennai Super Kings
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

	Naman Ojha became Albie Morkel's third first-over victim in three matches

Chennai Super Kings were disciplined, varied, led well, and thus effective in keeping the Rajasthan Royals batsmen down to a total they would fancy themselves to chase. The key moment came in the third quarter of the innings, when Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja looked to open up, hitting Shadab Jakati for a six each in one over, but Chennai accounted for both of them in the next two overs.

Ever since Albie Morkel struck in his first over - for the third time in three matches now, Rajasthan struggled for momentum. Chennai rotated their bowlers around smartly, using seven of them in first 10 overs, who gave away only five boundaries. Swapnil Asnodkar played his best innings of the tournament, pulling two boundaries and one six over point, yet he was nowhere near as destructive as last year. Graeme Smith played a similarly restrained innings as Rajasthan meandered towards the end of the innings.

The two added 53 in 50 balls, but there was no sense of restlessness because of the slow run-rate. But the unease became obvious with Smith after Asnodkar, who scored 26 off 25, missed while trying to sweep an overspun delivery from Muttiah Muralitharan. Five overs later Smith went to sweep Murali and was stumped, for 30 off 33, a kind of innings where he would think he wasted deliveries without capitalising on the slow platform.

From 75 for 3 in 13 overs, both Jadeja and Yusuf got stuck into Jakati. But Dhoni made two smart moves after that - he brought in L Balaji from the other end, and let Jakati continue despite that over. Balaji, helped by a superb diving-in-front catch by Suresh Raina at point, accounted for Jadeja, and Jakati got Yusuf who went for a repeat of the six in the next over. Again this dismissal was made possible by smart work from Jacob Oram at the long-on boundary.