IPL 6: RR vs KKR - Flops of the Day

The Rajasthan Royals continue to impress at their fortress – the Sawai Man Singh stadium – as they beat the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders by 19 runs. It was Ajinkya Rahane and Brad Hodge who were the stars in the batting for RR. The laurels were shared by all the bowlers as Siddharth Trivedi and Kevon Cooper picked up 3 wickets apiece and were ably supported by Rahul Shukla (2 wickets) and the former international duo of Sreesanth and Tait, who bagged 1 wicket each. KKR would have been left ruing a batting failure as only Eoin Morgan scored an impressive 51 before being dismissed by Kevon Cooper.

Here are some of the players who failed to make an impression in the match:

Shane Watson – Unimpressive return to the team

The decision to not bowl during Tests seems to have been carried over to the IPL as well. When he doesn’t bowl, he is inadvertently putting additional pressure on himself to perform with the bat. As was the case in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, he looked assured and even hit a powerful, lofted drive over long-off to move on to 5 runs. He tried the same shot off Lee’s very next delivery, managed to hit the ball from the toe-end of the bat and ended up giving a simple catch to short extra-cover. His brief innings of 5 again raised questions on how such a confident-looking batsman can make such unimpressive scores with such impressive frequency.

Jacques Kallis – out for a golden duck

He bowled his quota of 4 overs for 28 runs. ‘Not bad so far’, you’d say. But, when one of the leading all-rounders comes out to bat, you’d expect him to lend some solidity to the chase. Instead, he ended up fishing for a short delivery outside the off-stump off his very first delivery and edged the ball straight to the keeper. The entire KKR team shook their heads in disbelief at a rare Kallis failure.

Yusuf Pathan – second duck of the KKR innings

He did one better than the other all-rounder. Pathan was out off the second ball he faced. While many put a premium on their wicket, Pathan seems to be putting a premium on the runs he scores. How, you ask? He scored 194 runs at a price of $ 2.1 mn in IPL 5. Its still early days in this IPL, and given that KKR don’t use him as a bowler, Pathan will have to deliver with the bat to hold on to his place in the team.