Rajasthan Royals (RR) may have qualified for the Indian Premier League (IPL) playoffs but seem to have lost the plot towards the business end of the season. On Wednesday, they lost to Punjab Kings (PBKS) by 5 wickets in Guwahati, in what was their fourth consecutive defeat in the past two weeks.
Punjab Kings restricted the Royals to a meagre 144 for nine after the hosts opted to bat first. Local hero Riyan Parag scored 48 off 34 balls on a difficult track while Punjab skipper Sam Curran (2/24), Harshal Patel (2/28), and Rahul Chahar (2/26) shared 6 wickets among each other. In reply, Curran hit an unbeaten 63 off 41 balls to ensure an inconsequential victory with seven balls to spare.
Though the Royals, with 16 points, are safe in terms of qualifying for the playoffs, they might not finish in the top two with an inferior net run rate as Sunrisers can go up to 18 points with 2 games to go.
Royals skipper Sanju Samson wanted his team to accept ‘failures’ and urged individuals to raise their hands and display brilliance as the business end of the IPL starts next week.
“To be very honest, we have to sit back and accept that we are going through some failures,” Samson said during the post-match presentation ceremony. “You have to find out what’s not working well as a team. When you are getting to the business end, we need someone to raise their finger up and say I am going to win the game for the team,” he added.
The skipper said there was enough talent in the team which could show individual spark under pressure.
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“We have the players who can do that if all of us try that. It’s a team sport, but this is the time when we need individual players to step up. We were expecting the wicket to be a touch better. I think it’s not a 140 kind of a wicket, we should have got around 160. I think that’s where we lost the game,” he said.
With wickets falling at regular intervals, the Royals were forced to use Donovan Ferreira as an Impact Sub and missed a bowler.
“It would have been nicer to have one more bowling option; it gets a little tough when you have just five. But I am used to it. And we have five quality bowlers,” Sanju concluded.
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