Jaipur delights in great battle between Warne and Tendulkar

It is said great batsmen have three strokes to each ball. Tendulkar provided another example of it yesterday. In recent times to the short ball, his response has been to hook it to fine-leg or pull it to mid-wicket.

Against Rajasthan Royals, Tendulkar showed his mastery by smashing the short ball over mid-on while helping his team to a 37-run win.

Tendulkar was forced to try out the third alternative after some shrewd planning by master strategist Shane Warne had made his hook and pull shot a risky option.

The hosts' strategy was to pepper him with short balls and entice him to go for the hook shot. And in a clever ploy, Warne created doubts in the batsman's mind to deter the Mumbai batsman from going for his favourite strokes.

He packed the leg-side with three men on the boundary line (deep fine leg, deep square-leg and deep mid-wicket).

Tendulkar seemed to have grasped the RR trap early and kept his hook shot for as late as possible.

He had restricted his attempts to score off the short ball by trying to tap the ball over the wicketkeeper. But the boundaries were not forthcoming and Warne seemed to have won the battle against the champion batsman.

At the end of 14 overs, Mumbai were struggling at 101 for four a run-rate of 7.21. After another failed attempt to tap a short ball from Siddharth Trivedi over the 'keeper's head, Tendulkar was forced to throw caution to the wind.

Trivedi dropped it short again and Tendulkar went for the jugular. Warne wouldn't have believed his eyes when Tendulkar (45) miscued the hook shot high to the fine-leg fielder Aditya Dole. But, to the Royals' skipper's utter dismay, Dole dropped the dolly.

Royals had won all eight games played at Jaipur, but you don't drop Tendulkar and expect to get away.

The Mumbai skipper did not need a second invitation. He responded with a strategy that made Warne's strategy of having three men on the leg side boundary redundant.

The mid-on was inside the ring and from there-on, Tendulkar attacked the region by clearing his front leg and hitting over the fielder.

Tendulkar helped MI plunder 31 (three fours and two sixes) off the last 12 balls to take the score from 143 in 18 overs to 174 in 20.

Tendulkar's victory was complete when Warne pulled in his fine-leg inside the circle after his second six in the 20th over. The batting great remained unbeaten on 89.

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