The 2013 season of the Indian Premier League continues to shock and awe as the Rajasthan Royals continued to protect their proud home record at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur by decimating the visiting Mumbai Indians in a virtual no contest.

Batting first on winning the toss, the Royals posted an excellent 179-3 from their 20 overs with Ajinkya Rahane dropping anchor at one end and batting through the innings for the second straight game. Rahane ended unbeaten on 68 from 54 balls, while the rest of the batsmen threw their bats around from the other end to keep the Royals on the rampage.

The Pune Warriors committed the ultimate sin, throwing away a game that was in the bag for nearly 37 overs, losing 6 wickets for 7 runs in an incredible 13 ball period that cost them the game. While Pune's calamitous collapse will no doubt get the lion share of the attention, 29-year old Haryana skipper Amit Mishra's role in winning the game for the Sunrisers Hyderabad should not be forgotten as the leg spinner first smashed 30 from 24 balls to guide his team from 44-6 to an apparently competitive 119-8, before taking 4 wickets in one over, including a hat-trick to win his side a game they had no business being in.

The Pune Warriors won the toss and elected to field, a decision which appeared a masterstroke as Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled some gorgeous seam up deliveries to knock over a Kumar Sangakkara-less (benched) top order as he took 3-18 from his 4 overs forcing the Sunrisers on the backfoot.

In a match of unexpected twists and turns, West Indian Ravi Rampaul held his nerve as RCB continued to reign supreme at the Chinnaswamy stadium. Just when Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers were in charge, leading Bangalore's chase of 153, they choked towards the fag end of the innings, losing as many as 5 wickets in a space of 4 overs.

At the end of 40 overs there was nothing to separate the two sides. Umesh Yadav, who bagged the prize scalp of Kohli was thrust into the hot seat to bowl the Super over to Chris Gayle and AB de Villers. Whilst, the Viharba speedster did a fine job by muting Gayle's prowess, AB smacked back to back sixes over his favorite mid-wicket area to help the Royal Challengers recover to 15.

An organized and efficient team effort from Kings XI Punjab nullified Kolkata's individual contributions to pull off a surprising 4 run win over the defending champions at the PCA stadium in Mohali as KXIP picked up their second win of the season.

Sunil Narine's hat-trick, the tenth overall in the IPL and Gautam Gambhir's 60 runs from just 39 balls were overpowered by a late hurricane from Manpreet Gony lower down the Punjab innings and a tidy effort with the ball by Azhar Mahmood and Praveen Kumar. The sea-saw battle witnessed the momentum shift in favour of the Knight Riders quite a few times but the Punjab seamers held their nerve in the final moments of the game to hand Kolkata another frustrating loss.

A much changed Pune Warriors side stunned a complacent Chennai Super Kings outfit by 24 runs in a match that was widely tipped to go the other way. The introduction of young Aussie superstar Steve Smith energized the Warriors as they scripted an unlikely win against the former champions in a match they dominated right from the off.

Pune under the new leadership of Ross Taylor, due to Angelo Mathews' inability to play in Chennai due to political tension in the city, and without star player Yuvraj Singh were expected to be easy fodder for the superstars from Chennai. The Super Kings in fact decided to rest veteran superstar Mike Hussey for the game and the move backfired horribly as they struggled to cope with the Pune bowling unit, which restricted the hosts to an ordinary 135-8 in their pursuit of 160.

The Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur continued to be a venerable fortress as the Rajasthan Royals picked up another crucial home win, beating the Kings XI Punjab by 6 wickets in a low scoring contest.

Put into bat on losing the toss, the Kings XI Punjab failed to bat out their 20 overs, being bowled out an unacceptable 7 deliveries shy of their quota for just 124. S Sreesanth landed a double blow in his first over, removing both openers - Adam Gilchrist (0) and Mandeep Singh (2), and that set Punjab back tremendously.

The Eden Gardens was subjected to an Irish feast, as the home team rode the Morgan-wave, cruising to a humongous 48-run victory and registering their second win in IPL 2013. Valuable contributions from Manvinder Bisla, Gautam Gambhir, Jacques Kallllis and Eoin Morgan ensured a victory for the home side in a must-win encounter with the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The decision to bench the million-dollar Brendon McCullum once again was a highly debatable one, however, Bisla and Gambhir dispelled any such doubts by propelling the Kolkata Knight Riders to a crisp start; they made 48 in the powerplay, keeping their wickets intact. Bisla perished soon after, for a well-made 28 off 24 balls, however, the skipper carried on, dispatching the spinners to the fence and notching his second consecutive half-century off 39 balls. Kallis – the subdued contributor – was happy to knock the ball around for singles, and managing to find that odd boundary. Gambhir’s dismissal was against the run of play, with Ashish Reddy’s persistence with the slower ball getting the skipper out for a 45-ball-53 – an innings that earned him the Man of the Match.

Mumbai Indians improved their record against the Pune Warriors on the back of yet another spirited display of batting that saw them pick up their third win from the four games they have played thus far in IPL 2013. The Pune batsmen struggled to build partnerships as Mitchell Johnson's spell was good enough to hand out Pune a rankling 41 run defeat.

Mumbai skipper Ricky Ponting won the flip of the coin and elected to bat on a good sporting wicket. The opening duo of Ponting and Tendulkar made a promising start to the Mumbai innings putting up a brisk 54 run first wicket stand from 7 overs before Yuvraj got the much needed breathrough sending back Ponting (14) with his first ball of the evening. Tendulkar followed his captain in the next over after a strokeful innings of 44.