Rajasthan Royals to Beat Deccan Chargers by 3 wickets

Port Elizabeth: Rajasthan Royals made a remarkable recovery from a top order slump to beat Deccan Chargers' by three wickets in a thrilling Indian Premier League match on Saturday.

The Royals registered their third victory in the event from seven matches to put their title defence campaign on track, while the Deccan Chargers slumped to their second consecutive defeat to slide from the top of the points table.

Chasing a modest 142-run target, the Royals rode on useful contributions from their lower middle order, especially young Abhishek Raut (36 off 23) to scamper home in 19.4 overs after they were tottering at 3/3 at one stage of the match.

Earlier opting to bat, Adam Gilchrist (39) started the Chargers' innings on a blistering note, picking up 27 runs of the first three overs and then Rohit Sharma (38) and T Suman (41) stitched a crucial 59-run stand for the fourth wicket to guide Deccan Chargers to 141 for five.

The Royals started their innings on a disastrous note as they lost three quick wickets by the end of the second over.

Graeme Smith's misery with the bat continued as he fell without troubling the scorers in the second ball off Fidel Edwards' opening over, caught at third man by Shoaib Ahmed.

Swanpil Asnodkar did not do any justice either as he was run out by Gibbs in the very next ball and then Naman Ojha added more worries for the Royals when he gave a straight forward catch to Gibbs at point off RP Singh in the second over to see the defending champions slump to a precarious 3/3.

Prime Numbers

3 for 3 - Rajasthan's score at the end of the second over.
4.1 - The over in which Rajasthan hit their first boundary.
19 - The number of first-ball ducks this season, including Swapnil Asnodkar's run-out today.
42 - The number of balls in which Lee Carseldine and Ravindra Jadeja added 50 for the fourth wicket.
194 - Yusuf Pathan's strike-rate against Deccan in three matches he has played against them.
4 - Number of sixes hit by Shane Warne this season, all of them against Deccan.
64 - T Suman's average, the highest for a Deccan batsman.
3 - The number of Man-of-the-Match awards that Yusuf has this season. It equals the number of matches Rajasthan have won.

Brief Score: Rajasthan Royals 142 for 7 (Raut 36*, Carseldine 39) beat Deccan Chargers (Suman 41*) 141 for 5 by by three wickets.

Scores	Upcoming	Results
South Africa vs Pakistan - 3rd ODI 4th Test - Australia v India - December 26-30, 23:30 GMT 1st Test - Zimbabwe v Afghanistan - December 26-30, 07:30 GMT 3rd ODI - Zimbabwe v Afghanistan at Harare Afghanistan won by 8 wickets (with 139 balls remaining) 3rd T20I - West Indies v Bangladesh at St Vincent Bangladesh won by 80 runs

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