Watson entertained the crowd at the M A Chidambaram stadium with some brilliant strokeplay before finishing at 101 off just 61 deliveries. He decorated his innings with six fours and as many fours.
Towards the end, Stuart Binny played a 22-ball unbeaten 36-run cameo to further help Rajasthan's cause.
Except for Ravichandran Ashwin (2/20), all Chennai bowlers bled runs as Watson went hammer-and-tonks from the word go. Apart from Ashwin, Dwayne Bravo (2/36) also picked up two wickets for the hosts.
Watson and Ajinkya Rahane (16), who played the second fiddle, shared 71 runs off 44 balls for the opening stand.
More From This Section
Watson went ballistic from the onset and slaughtered the Chennai bowlers, except for Ashwin, with consummate ease.
Watson did not let go any scoring chance as he punished anything that was bowled full or short to him.
He smacked Mohit Sharma for a six and a four to pick up 14 runs off the third over. Watson meted out the same treatment to Chris Morris and Ravindra Jadeja to score identical 16 runs of the fifth and seventh over.