The calm and collected batsman, Ajinkya Rahane, dashed to a 60-ball IPL century against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore to take Rajasthan Royals to an easy win on 15th April 2012. Rahane scored 103* in 60 balls while Siddarth Trivedi took four for 25 to lead the bowling charts.
Rajasthan Royals captain Rahul Dravid won the toss and chose to bat first on the Bangalore track which he was super-familiar with. The start from Rajasthan Royals was slow as India’s lead bowler Zaheer Khan bowled with immaculate discipline. Ajinkya Rahane even played out a maiden.
After weathering the early storm, Rahane did not hold ack himself. Rahul Dravid, his opening partner got out for 25 off 32 on the bowling of Daniel Vettori in a bid to accelerate the scoring. At that stage, RR was 62/1 in the 11th over. English big-hitting batsman Owais Shah now joined Ajinkya Rahane.
The pair launched an unheralded assault on the Bangalore bowling. Setting up a record in T20 cricket, Ajinkya Rahane smacked six fours in six balls of Sreenath Aravind. This was the first such instance. Both smashed Sreenath Aravind and Vinay Kumar to collect 99 runs from their seven overs.
Other bowlers such as Daniel Vettori and Zaheer Khan escaped the punishment. Murali tried containing bu the also conceded 35 runs from 4 overs. The final score of RR was 195/2 in 20 overs. Ajinkya Rahahne scored 103*(60) with 12 boundaries and five sixes. Owais Shah ended up with 60(26) with five fours and five sixes.
Karnataka’s own Mayank Agarwal started off in a mood to chase with 34 runs from 21 balls with three boundaries and as many sixes. Once Agarwal got out, there was not much resistance from the rest of RCB batsmen and they just crumbled for 136. Pankaj Singh took 2/18 while Trivedi claimed 4/25. Rajasthan Royals won by 59 runs.
