The match against Delhi Capitals was a must-win match for Rajasthan Royals and their fans would be very disappointed with the kind of performance they put up
Rajasthan Royals made an absolute mess in the middle, in a must-win match against Delhi Capitals on Saturday. Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and elected to bat first on a slow and turning wicket at the Feroz Shah Kotla. In the absence of Royals' star players, their team management and fans were hoping for a good innings from Rahane, but he played a lose shot in the second over of the innings and gave his wicket away cheaply.
It was a must-win match for the Royals and their fans would be very disappointed with the kind of performance they put up, which made the game almost one-sided in the favour of Delhi Capitals.
Let's have a look at some of the mistakes Rajasthan Royals made against Delhi Capitals that killed their playoff hopes.
The wicket at the Feroz Shah Kotla was offering a lot of assistance to the spinners, but the Royals batsmen, without analysing the wicket, just kept going for big shots and lost wickets almost every over. After the first couple of overs, it was clearly visible that the ball wasn't coming on to the bat easily and 150-155 was looking like a par total. In IPL 2019, batsmen have only managed to score runs at the rate of 7.1 runs per over at the Feroz Shah Kotla. It the second-worst after the scoring rate at Chennai Super Kings' home ground, Chepauk.
But the Rajasthan Royals batsmen, right from the top-order to tailenders, didn't give themselves the time to settle down and construct their innings on a difficult batting wicket. Only Riyan Parag, the 17-year-old all-rounder, showed good skills and application and scored his first IPL fifty and added some respect to RR's total.
Even when Amit Mishra was bowling brilliantly and taking wickets, the Rajasthan batsmen showed no respect and just kept playing extravagant shots. That they managed to get through their 20 overs and was largely due to 17-year-old Parag, who showed more maturity than his seniors.
Parag didn't play too many extravagant or fancy strokes and scored 50 off 49 balls. The teenager received a lot of praise for his intelligent knock. Had one more Rajasthan batsman supported him, the result could've been different.
One of the advantages of having a dugout in T20 cricket is that teams can send messages from the coaching staff to players in the middle very easily. Despite the poor shot selection and absurd batting, there was no communication from the Rajasthan dugout to change the approach.
In T20 cricket, the think-tank needs to be equally proactive and keep the players informed in the middle as much as they can.
Rajasthan invested a lot of money on Unadkat but it turned it out to be a bad investment as Unadkat didn't make the impact that Rajasthan Royals were expecting after investing Rs 8.4 crore on him. The pitch at the Feroz Shah Kotla was ideal for him as he keeps making subtle change in his pace and bowls a lot of cutters and slower-ones.
Looking at Ishant Sharma's performance, Unadkat would have been a good bet for Rajasthan Royals.
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