Kolkata, may 20: After weeks of euphoria surrounding the Kolkata Knight Riders’ roller-coaster journey in the IPL, it’s only symbolic that the carnival’s biggest attraction and inspiration gave tonight’s ‘Royal’ mauling a conspicuous miss -— a night when the bubble over Kolkata’s big dreams in the tournament simply burst.

For a change, there was no Shah Rukh Khan to egg his team on. Also missing the action was Kolkata’s darling Shoaib Akhtar, out with an injury. With no weathergods and rain-rules to help them out today, and barely 40,000 spectators turning up for the mis-match, Sourav Ganguly & Co crashed to yet another hapless defeat, this time at the hands of Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals.

The visitors survived a few hiccups and prevailed to comfortably chase down a modest 148 victory target, with six wickets in hand and 21 balls to spare. Tonight’s defeat saw Shah Rukh’s beleaguered team all but crash out of title contention.

By the time the Knight Riders’ challenge was quelled and John Buchanan’s team all but shorn of semi-final hopes, Yusuf Pathan (48 runs off 18 balls) and Mohammad Kaif (34 runs off 31 balls) turned out to be the night’s unexpected heroes, conjuring up a whirlwind 81-run stand for the 5th wicket to help the Royals seal Kolkata’s fate.

In a match dubbed as Mission Improbable for Ganguly’s boys — they needed to win all three of their remaining matches — the Knight Riders’ hopes of staging a comeback into the tournament were raised briefly by the captain, and later crashed with him.

In an effort to lead from the front, the Kolkata icon batted moderately well, bowled his heart out — dismissing the dangerous Shane Watson midway into the chase to swing the pendulum in Kolkata’s favour briefly — but saw Yusuf smash two almighty sixes over the long-on fence and then race away to a well-deserved victory. With tonight’s cakewalk, the Rajasthan Royals secured their ninth win in the tournament off 11 matches.

Top-order falters again

The Knight Riders batsmen don’t seem to be learning their lessons, getting off to yet another stuttering start after being put in to bat first. With forecast warnings on the back of the mind, skipper Warne did the expected, opting to chase, but the Knight Riders batsmen failed to make the most of batting first.

Sourav Ganguly must have been thanking his stars after the lesser-celebrated trio of Debabrata Das (31 runs off 20 balls), Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Wriddhiman Saha bailed them out with some cheeky, quick-fire strokeplay towards the closing overs. In the end, as Knight Riders reached a modest 147 for 8 off their 20 overs, it was the flurry of runs in the last 5 overs — 47 runs came off the last 30 balls — that pulled the home team out of the rut.

Local hero Ganguly returned among the runs, scoring 32 runs off 34 balls, but his excessively cautious approach saw the crafty Rajasthan Royals bowlers sneak in far too many dot balls for Buchanan & Co’s comfort.

Full credit to Warne, whose guile on the captaincy front was on display here, as the wily leg-spinner juggled his bowling around expertly to keep the wary Knight Riders batsmen guessing for the larger part of the innings.

Sohail Tanvir-Munaf Patel-Shane Watson-Tanvir — that was the bowling order in the first four overs, and understandably, the Knight Riders struggled to settle down, managing just 50 runs in the first 10 overs.

If the unusually disciplined and accurate Munaf (2 wickets for 22 runs) dominated the proceedings with the new ball — sending back Mohammad Hafeez and Salman Butt cheaply — it was the equally cunning Tanvir (3 wickets for 26 runs) who mopped up the tail and ensured the sudden late-order charge from the daring Das, who sent down two massive sixes, to keep things under control.

Warne himself may have gone for 21 runs off three unimpressive overs — Ganguly smacked him for a huge six over long-on shortly before holing out in the deep off Siddharth Trivedi — but his maverick captaincy on the field intimidated the Knight Riders through the innings.