Tuskers trampled Rajasthan Royals - TeluguPeople.com News

INDORE: Brad Hodge took 4/13 and scored an unbeaten 33 as Kochi Tuskers Kerala thrashed a hapless Rajasthan Royals won by 8 wickets with 12.4 overs to spare in match 61 of IPL-4 at Indore on Sunday.

Earlier, Brendon McCullum smashed a quickfire 29 off 12 balls before being dismissed as the Kochi Tuskers took control of the match. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene departed as Kochi lost their first wicket. Brad Hodge led the way with four wickets as the Kochi Tuskers bundled out the Royals for a paltry 97.

Opting to bowl first after winning the toss, Hodge returned with impressive figures of four for 13 after the pace combo of RP Singh and S Sreesanth did the initial damage to push Rajasthan on the backfoot.

Rajasthan made six changes to the squad that played in the last match, and the move backfired. In an otherwise lacklustre batting display, young Ashok Menaria top-scored for Rajasthan, making a well-crafted 31 with the help of three fours and a six.

RP Singh gave Kochi their first breakthrough when he trapped Faiz Fazal in front of the wicket after the batsman missed a full toss.

S Sreesanth then had Rahul Dravid with a beauty of a delivery that moved away slightly after landing. Dravid went for it but only managed a nick that was taken by Owais Shah at slip.

Ajinkya Rahane made a statement of sorts by elegantly flicking Sreesanth through midwicket for a boundary but the bowler fought back immediately, having the young batsman caught plumb in front of the wicket and leaving Rajasthan in serious trouble.

Shane Watson tried his best to take the fight to the opposition camp, smashing Padmanbhan Prasanth for three massive sixes in the eighth over but Prasanth Parmeswaren came back to disturb the Australian's timber in the next over.

Hodge then took centrestage, dismissing Pinal Shah, Jacob Oram and Shane Warne in quick succession to put his team on top at the Holkar Cricket stadium. The spinner from Australia got Shah with a quicker one after the batsman mistimed a slog-sweep to give Y Gnaneswara Rao a simple catch at long-on.

Oram and Warne's stumps were knocked over by Hodge as Kochi took command of the match. Even as wickets kept falling like nine pins, Menaria stood firm, working the ball around for some valuable runs, before Hodge put the brakes on his innings.

Just before that, Ravindra Jadeja and Hodge combined to run out Ankeet Chavan. It was all over when Parameswaran had last man Nayan Doshi skying an easy catch to Jayawardene in the 19th over of the innings.