Sanju Samson is the Man of the Match for his 37. He says: “We wanted a win badly at home and it feels good to get our first win. I think it’s about the preparation, we had around four camps before the IPL and an excellent support staff who give us lot of freedom. This is one of the best grounds in India. Credit to the groundstaff.”

Gambhir: “It was a beautiful wicket to bat on but a flat one. I thought if we could contain them, we had a good chance. I can understand that it was difficult for our batsmen as there were any balls, difficult for our batsmen. It would have been interesting had it been a 20-over game.”

Rajasthan’s dominance over Delhi continues. The inaugural champions crawl to fifth place. Delhi have slumped to the bottom with two losses from as many. Can’t fault anyone here; there was too little time for the batsmen to effect proceedings. Despite a scratchy effort in the chase, Delhi were only 11 runs short. Some things never change and that is Rajasthan making Sawai Man Singh their fortress. Rahane was smart with his bowling changes and Stanlake stood out with his slower deliveries and sending back Maxwell. Another excruciating walk back to the drawing board for poor Delhi, they didn’t do too many things wrong with the ball either.

RAJASTHAN ROYALS WIN BY 10 RUNS

DD 60/4 in 6 overs Once again, Ben Laughlin gives nothing away. The slow deliveries fox the batters early in the over. Vijay Shankar holes out at long on as Stokes taking a safe catch. Morris, though, ends things with a flourish, reading Laughlin’s slow deliveries well and thumping a four and six back over the bowler’s head. Too little, too late.

Vijay Shankar c Stokes b Laughlin 3 (3)

DD 46/3 in 5 overs Chris Morris takes no time to get use to proceedings. Unadkat continues to target the wide yorker but gets success only while chasing the batsmen. Pant tries one shot too many and pressure gets the better of him. He skies a slow ball and Gowtham at deep-square takes a fine catch.

R Pant c Gowtham b Unadkat 20 (14)

WICKET! DD 34/2 in 3.4 overs Laughin bowls the third one. Pant nearly disappears as he skies one but survives. The fielders converge but none can catch it. Then, the old warhorse gets rid of Maxwell with a slow one. He gets a big nick and Buttler takes a safe catch. Rajasthan are cock-a-hoop.

G Maxwell c Buttler b Laughlin 17 (12)

DD 29/1 in 3 overs Unadkat goes for wide yorkers and he earns three consecutive dot balls, each of which will hurt Delhi. Maxwell finally manages to squeeze out a boundary. The fifth ball sees Maxi get enough wood to cart the ball way over the long-on boundary. Unadkat goes for a wide yorker again and Maxwell goes for a one-handed slash and it’s another four. Fine end to the over but Delhi need more of this. They need 42 from the last three overs.

DD 15/1 in 2 overs Dhawal Kulkarni bowls the second over. He starts off well, cramping Pant and Maxwell for room. He bowls a wide but that was about as far as he strayed. There were a couple of full deliveries on offer but Pant and Maxwell could not beat the infield. Excellent stuff from Kulkarni. Delhi need 56 from four overs.

DD 10/1 in 1 Over There was nearly another mix-up but Rishabh Pant survived. The southpaw did manage to crunch a couple of boundaries off Gowtham, though.

WICKET! DD 0/1 in 0.1 Overs What a start for Rajasthan. Cheers from the ones who managed to stay back for the game. A terrible mix-up in the middle between Maxwell and Munro, Buttler takes his gloves off, pings a fine throw and Gowtham whips off the bails. Munro was a few inches short.
C Munro run out 0 (0)

11:55 pm: PLAY WILL RESUME. Delhi Daredevils need 71 from six overs.

11:05 pm: It’s still pouring heavily at Jaipur. The cut-off time for a 5-over game is 12:02 am. Phew, the excruciating wait surges on.

10.20 pm: The rain has stopped but the super soppers are still at work. A pitch inspection is expected to take place at 10.40 pm, say the IPL officials. The wait continues....

9:57 pm: The covers are still on. After 10:10 pm, we might start to lose overs. Stay tuned..

9.40 pm: The latest reports coming in states that the rain has not subsided at Jaipur. The wait continues.

Rain delay: Well, well...this was not a part of a script. There was a sudden downpour and the umpires call for the covers to come on. Tripathi was joined by K Gowtham at the crease.

RR 153/5 in 17.5 overs The Buttler show was gathering a tremendous amount of steam. Mohammad Shami, though, outfoxes the Englishman with a clever slower one as he set himself for a paddle down leg. During this time, Buttler smashed two sixes off Morris and he was aided by some luck near the boundary ropes – Boult and Maxwell made good efforts in the deep but couldn’t stop the ball from going over the ropes. Shami was also treated to a booming cut over third man for a four. The Indian pacer, though, got his man with a delivery that oozed class.
J Buttler b Shami 29 (18)

RR 126/4 in 16 overs Once again, Delhi start well after the break. Tewatia bowls a strange over, teasing the delivery down the leg-side relentlessly, asking them to take him on. Rajasthan milk a couple of twos, nudging the ball down to fine-leg. No sign of Buttler going ballistic so far. One suspects, it is right around the corner.

WICKET! RR 113/4 in 14 overs There goes another one and it’s Rahane. Trying to flick Nadeem, he the ball rushes onto him and gets a top edge in the process. The ball bobs up in the air and Morris has all the time in the world to position himself for an easy take. Once again, Rajasthan throw away momentum when they had a set batsman at the crease.
A Rahane c Morris b Nadeem 45 (40)

RR 108/3 in 13 Overs Buttler has wasted no time to settle in and gets a boundary with a classy cut shot. Rahane at the other is playing it smart, rotating the strike, taking a leaf out of how Gambhir went about his business against Punjab. The Rajasthan skipper is into his 40s now. Gambhir continues to operate with spin and the ball has started to skid on to the batsmen.

WICKET! RR 90/3 in 11 Overs Nadeem strikes and how crucial is this. Delhi have kept run-scoring in check after the break and Samson is bowled. The youngster is deceived by the arm-ball and the ball clips his pads and hits the stumps. Samson, though, did his part.
S Samson b Nadeem 37 (22)

RR 77/2 in 9 Overs Samson is on fire! Gambhir operates with spin at both ends. Tewatia bowls a tidy over, concedes just four runs off it. But Samson continues to be on on song, tearing into Nadeem like a veteran. He punishes a short delivery for a big six over cow cover and then runs down an off-spinner to the third-man fence, another four. The partnership has moved on to 49 and it’s taken little time.

RR 58/2 in 7 Overs Rahane continues to feed off his partner. Samson is motoring away with minimum fuss, picking it up from where he left at Mohali. Importantly, Delhi have kept the scoreboard moving after losing two wickets in the powerplay overs.

WICKET! RR 43/2 in 5 Overs There goes the second and it’s Boult who bags the big fish. Stokes was threatening to run away with it but the left-armer, this time, finds his edge, and Rishabh Pant behind the stumps takes a smart catch diving to his left. It was a peach from Boult.

Cricket can be a great leveler and Boult finds out the hard way as Samson takes no time to get into a boundary-hitting rhythm. The youngster first goes behind square on the off-side to get a boundary and follows that up with a thumping SIX with a pull. A misfield gives Rahane another four.
B Stokes c Pant b Boult 16 (12)

RR 28/1 in 4 overs Oh yeah! Ben Stokes is up and away. Trent Boult beat his outside edge with a peach in the first ball of the third over. But the Englishman immediately went on the counter, using his feet at will. He thumped a drive past mid-off and in the next over, which was by Morris, whipped the first SIX of the match off Chris Morris. It has rubbed off on Rahane, who is also stepping out of his crease albeit with little luck.

Delhi Daredevils players celebrate the wicket of D'Arcy Short| Image credit: Deepak Malik/SPORTZPICS

WICKET! RR 14/1 in 2 overs Ajinkya Rahane starts things off with cautiously before taking Trent Boult on, gets a three. Six runs from the first over. D’Arcy Short, meanwhile, takes on Shahbaz Nadeem straight away with a boundary, but for the second time in a row, the Australian’s stay at the crease is short-lived. Vijay Shankar stars with a brilliant direct hit from long-on. Short was hesitant in going for the second run and that cost him his wicket. Ben Stokes has been promoted to number three and there’s nearly another confusion in the middle between the two batsmen.
D’ Arcy Short Run out 5 (2)

Lineups:

Rajasthan Royals: Ajinkya Rahane (c), D’Arcy Short, Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Rahul Tripathi, Jos Buttler, K Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Ben Laughlin

Delhi Daredevils: Colin Munro, Gautam Gambhir (c), Shreyas Iyer, Vijay Shankar, Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Tewatia, Chris Morris, Shahbaz Nadeem, Trent Boult, Mohammad Shami

Changes: Shahbaz Nadeem and Glenn Maxwell, who flew in just a day ago, replace Amit Mishra and Dan Christian for Delhi. Rajasthan are unchanged from the previous game.

Toss: Gautam Gambhir decides to chase and admits the dew factor coming in later in the day as the reason behind the decision.

Welcome. Fans have thronged the Sawai Man Singh stadium in numbers. This should also be a run fest in all probability. Both teams need to bat a lot better than the last game.

Live updates:

Skipper Ajinkya Rahane will be key for RR. He has scored more runs against the DD than against any other IPL opponent. In 15 matches against DD, Rahane has scored 632 runs at an average of 63.20.

The IPL returns to the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur for the first time since 2013.
At the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, RR have a 24–9 win-loss record. In the inaugural season under Shane Warne, RR had won each of their seven matches.

Head to Head
Overall: M: 16, RR won: 10, DD won: 6.
In Jaipur: M: 4, RR won: 3, DD own: 1.

Rajasthan Royals will need to regroup quickly after a heavy loss when they face Delhi Daredevils in what will be their first home game in five years at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Wednesday.

Both Royals and Daredevils were outplayed in their opening games and will be itching to bounce back.

Daredevils were severely hit by KL Rahul’s record IPL fifty in their opening clash against Kings XI Punjab, which they lost by six wickets.

Royals, on the other hand, could never cope with the bowling might of Sunrisers Hyderabad and went down by nine wickets in Hyderabad on Monday.

It was a rather forgettable opening for the hosts who are making a comeback in the tournament after serving a two-year suspension.

Skipper Anjikya Rahane too would like to forget the outing where he failed with the bat, missed a sitter in slips and also gambled with batting only to see a complete rout of his team.

The comfort zone of playing at home may give the desired dose of much needed confidence but the cracks exposed against Sunrisers need to be addressed quickly.