Rao sizzles, but Rajasthan prevails

Delhi were in all sorts of trouble by the time Venugopal Rao came to the crease. Shaun Tait had blasted Virender Sehwag and Aaron Finch out, before Shane Warne bamboozled the young Indian batsmen in the middle order. David Warner had survived the spell, and along with Rao breathed life into the innings.

Rajasthan let the pressure ease off after a solid start, and Rao checked in with a couple of controlled boundaries against spin before Warner preyed upon Trivedi's poor lines. He then skipped inside the line of a yorker from Amit Singh to pick up four through fine leg.

Johan Botha returned to the attack for the 15th over and Rao welcomed him with a launched drive over midwicket. Amit's slower balls were easy to spot and Rao punished them for boundaries in the 18th over as Delhi's score began to swell. He exploded in the 19th over, getting inside the line of two slow legcutters from Siddharth Trivedi and blasting successive sixes over the covers. By the time he was done, Rao had amassed 60 off 40 balls, and Delhi went on to loot 108 off the second half of their innings.

Rao had given Delhi a chance, but the bowlers did not turn up and Rajasthan chugged along to an easy victory.

Warner plundered Tait's indiscretions in length for three boundaries in his third over. He reached his 50 by cutting Warne in front of square before handing over the baton to his partner. Rao launched two successive slower balls from Trivedi for sixes over the off side, before Irfan Pathan slugged boundaries off Tait's closing over to hustle Delhi to challenging total.