DELHI: The Rajasthan Royals slipped to their first defeat in five games after a disappointing top order collapse consigned them to a heavy 67 run defeat against the Delhi DareDevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla..

The Royals were set a run chase of 189 by the DareDevils after Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Karthik built an important 5th wicket partnership of 79 to rescue the home side after they had lost 4 early wickets.

The Royals run chase started off in disastrous fashion as Michael Lumb and Faiz Fazal were both dismissed by Farveez Maharoof in the first over with out scoring as the DareDevils seized the innovative.

Naman Ojha (27) offered some resistant with a string of boundaries but the opener was caught by Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps to give Amit Mishra his first wicket of the night after Ohja had smashed consecutive boundaries of his bowling earlier in the over.

Unbelievably it got worst for the visitors four balls later when Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (2) was run out by Sarabjit Ladda after he was turned back by Adam Voges as the pair when for an ill judged second run reducing the Royals to 32-4.

Yusuf Pathan (24) offered another innings of fireworks smashing two huge sixes into the stands but as one of the Royals last recognised batsman he should have taken more responsibility and built a recovery with Voges instead of throwing away his wicket.

With every ball bowled the innings got worse and worse for the Royals as Voges (15) and then Shane Warne (0) were both dismissed as the visitor’s slump continued.

Sumit Narwal (12), Paras Dogra (20) and Shaun Tait (11) offered little resistant as the Royals game ended in further misery after being bowled out for 121.

Earlier, having lost the toss the Royals got off to a great start bowling thanks to Sumit Marwal who picked up two early wickets to leave the DareDevils on the back foot after losing David Warner (4) and Virender Sehwag (19) inside the first three overs to leave the home side 25-2.

Paul Collingwood came the crease looking to rescue the innings like he did alongside Warner against the Knight Riders on Monday night but he could only contribute 16 runs before he was run out by Adam Voges at point.

The DareDevils lost Kedar Jadhav (10) before Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Karthik built an important 5th wicket partnership of 79 which saw the home side reach 146-4 before Gambhir (43) innings came to an end after he was caught by Yusuf Pathan at mid on.

Karthik (69) remained at the crease to score his third IPL half century helping the DareDevils reach 188-6 thanks to a quick fire 6th wicket stand of 42 with Andrew McDonald (14).

After reducing the DareDevils to 67-4 the Royals will feel they let the home side of the hook and they’ll find it hard to chase the victory as the pitch turns slower and slower.