Royals skipper admits Tendulkar reprieve took the game away
Royals skipper admits Tendulkar reprieve took the game away
Shane Warne has first-hand experience of the costliest dropped catch in cricket history. But that time his team had been the beneficiary as his then Australia skipper Steve Waugh made the most of the life that South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs gave him and went on to win the 1999 World Cup. Yesterday, unfortunately, Warne found himself at the receiving end of a dropped catch.
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| OOPS! Aditya Dole drops Mumbai Indians skipper Sachin Tendulkar when he was on 45. The batting maestro went on to score 89 to take the match away from the Rajasthan Royalsu00a0 yesterday.
PIC: IPL2010 / GETTY IMAGES |
Rajasthan Royals had won all eight games played at Jaipur going into the match against Mumbai Indians and had it not been for Sachin Tendulkar, Royals would have got a ninth win too.
Tendulkar, on 45 then, made Warne's team pay a heavy price for the lapse and lifted his team from an expected below-par score to a challenging 174 with a swashbuckling unbeaten 89.
The 37-run defeat has hurt Rajasthan Royals' chances of reaching the semi-finals. And if they fail to progress, it will be this moment in the 14th over that RR might look back at with regret when Aditya Dole spilled Tendulkar's catch at fine-leg.
With MI taking 14 overs to cross 100, RR had the MI run-rate under control at that stage.
After 12 games, RR are on 12 points, the same as Royal Challengers and Delhi Daredevils, but have played a game more than the other two.
The result will have also lifted the spirits of Knight Riders, Super Kings and Chargers, all of whom have two points less than RR but have a game in hand.
Aware of the high stakes, even the experts were aghast at the expensive miss. "How could he drop it. It was not a tough one at all," Jeremy Coney, New Zealand's successful captain, was heard telling a fellow commentator during dinner time.
"Tendulkar is the best batsman I have played against and obviously the dropped catch hurt. These things are part and parcel of the game, but the runs we conceded in the last four overs gave MI a lot of momentum," said Warne.
"There's never a good time for a loss, it has to come at some stage. But (it hurts) especially now as we have got back to the pack (in semi-final contention) with everyone else," added Warne.
Tendulkar said rather than worry about the dropped catch, it was more important to focus on putting on the runs for his team.
"All these things do happen in the game; sometimes catches are dropped, sometimes run-outs are missed. It is part and parcel of cricket," Tendulkar said.
"Despite that, you have to continue to play and have to score runs. On the whole, it was a good game for us, not only batting, but our bowling was also good where we had a good start," he added.
