Rajasthan Royals jelled as a unit and scripted a comeback win against Kings XI Punjab in the DLF IPL 3 match between two basement dwellers at the Punjab Cricket Association Ground here on Wednesday night.

There wasn’t a fifty in Royals innings but cameo knocks by Adam Voges (45 not out off 24 balls) and Michael Lumb (41 off 30) was supplemented by disciplined bowling. Siddharth Trivedi’s niggardly spell was crucial and the youngster snared the dangerous Yuvraj Singh with a slow delivery to snuff out the chase. The bowling was also backed up by excellent fielding and Jhunjunwalla produced a piece of magic to run out Pathan at crucial time.

Kings XI wasted a great start to lose the match by 31 runs. The win pitch forked Shane Warne’s team to fifth in the points table. Chasing 185 for a win, Sangakkara treated Munaf Patel’s wobbly seamers with disdain and his second over went for 15 runs. The Punjab skipper slapped Tait for three boundaries but his ambitious upper-cut off a snorter from Tait ended in third man’s throat. Manvinder Bisla kept the momentum going by playing some audacious shots. Both Munaf and Warne bore the brunt of Bisla power as Kings XI rattled up 76 runs in the power play. However, Warne had the last laugh when he tempted Bisla to slog sweep his gently tossed up delivery and had him caught by Lumb at mid-wicket.

Trivedi slipped in two quite overs varying his pace and cramping the batsmen for room. His slow ball was hard to pick and Yuvraj Singh, surviving a dropped chance, skied another slow ball to long on. But the twin strikes in Munaf Patel’s fourth over derailed the Punjab chase. It was again the slow stuff which did the trick. Bopara was snared by a slow delivery which the batsmen only managed to chip to mid-on. Another slow delivery had Jayawardene checking his drive and ball lobbed over the back pedaling Munaf’s head. Jhunjunwalla rushed in from mid on and under-armed the ball to catch Irfan Pathan, who had backed too far, short of the crease. Rajasthan kept picking up wickets at regular intervals and Tait returned to fire out the tail..

Earlier, Rajasthan got off to a positive start. Michael Lumb shrugged off his rustiness to dominate the bowling. For a change Sreesanth was disciplined but at the other end Irfan Pathan leaked runs. Fazal held one end up after Lumb was dismissed. Yusuf Pathan played the big shots but couldn’t dominate the attack as he would like to. The Kings XI bowlers especially Theron and Chawla did well to restrict Yusuf Pathan’s big shots to just a six and a boundary.

But Fazal’s 60-run fourth wicket stand with Adam Voges took the game away from home-side. Fazal mixed caution with aggression while Adam Voges played the big shots and improvised when ever the opportunity came. The duo opened up in the last three overs to prop up the innings.