Rahane, Nair power Royals to 189/2 against Daredevils

Mumbai: Ajinkya Rahane and Karun Nair displayed superb batting skills to help Rajasthan Royals post a challenging 189/2 against Delhi Daredevils in an Indian Premer League (IPL) match at the Brabourne Stadium here on Sunday.

Rahane smashed an unbeaten 91 off 54 balls which included nine fours and three sixes, whereas his partner Nair hit 61 ball 38, striking six boundaries and two sixes but was out in the 19th over.

The duo brought up their 100-run partnership for the second wicket in just 63 balls.

With his splendid innings, Rahane replaced Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner in the IPL 2015 leading run scorers' list with 430 runs.

Put in to bat, Rajasthan got off to a modest start, with openers Rahane and Shane Watson taking time to get settled in the middle.

But with a couple of overs bowled, they took on the Daredevils bowling, piling up the team's first fifty in just 6.2 overs.

But as skipper Watson was looking to get settled, a surprise delivery by Angelo Mathews got him caught by the wicketkeeper for 21 off 24 balls.

His wicket didn't put the brakes on the scoring as opener Rahane took the reins from thereon to strike the ball to all parts of the park.

Incoming batsman Karun Nair too held on quite easily to give good company to Rahane.

The duo took advantage of some poor fielding by the visitors to put 100 runs on the board in the 14th overs.

Dardevils dropped three catches in the innings. Gurinder Sandhu, Saurabh Tiwary dropped Rahane and Nair respectively and later on Amit Mishra and Zaheer Khan colliding to drop Rahane.

For Delhi, Angelo Mathews was the pick of the bowlers, picking up one wicket and finishing with figures of 4-0-27-1.

The other bowlers, Zaheer Khan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Amit Mishra, Gurwinder Sandhu all leaked runs.