Sanju Samson who led the Rajasthan Royals to register a couple of four consecutive victories in their first 11 games of the season opens on the reason behind their defeat against Delhi Capitals yesterday.
Rajasthan Royals were scheduled to face Delhi Capitals on May 7 in Arun Jaitley Stadium. The game turned out to be very crucial for Delhi Capitals as a loss in this game would reduce their IPL 2024 playoffs chances.
On the other hand, a win would promote Rajasthan Royals to become the first team to be qualified for the playoffs.
In a do-or-die situation, Delhi players executed an extraordinary performance with both bat and ball. While chasing Rajasthan Royals had an upper hand as their captain smashed Delhi bowlers all around the stadium.
But his dismissal in the 16th over changed the game upside down for Rajasthan Royals. At the end of the inning, Rajasthan Royals fell 20 runs short and lost the game.
While addressing during the post-match presentation, Sanju Samson revealed the reason for the defeat and felt they had a chance of winning the game at one point.
“I think we had it in our hands, it was like 11-12 runs per over, it was achievable, but these things happen in IPL.
Yes, we are doing both the things fine, we will like to stick to what the conditions demand, 220 was 10 runs extra to chase, if we had conceded a couple of less boundaries, we would have made it through”.
Sanju Samson praised Delhi Capitals’ opening batter Jake Fraser-McGurk for his impressive knocks he played throughout the tournament.
“The DC opener (Fraser McGurk) came out and did what he has done through the tournament, we still came back well. We have lost three games but all those games have been really tight, we have been playing remarkably well, we have to do some fine-tuning and make a comeback, we need to keep the momentum going”.
Sanju named Yuzi Chahal and Sandeep Sharma as the Rajasthan Royals’ best bowlers and went on to give credit to Stubbs who struck 2-3 sixes against them.
“Yes and No actually, you have to give credit to someone like Stubbs who batted well against Sandeep, who has been bowling very well in the last 10-11 games, he scored 2-3 sixes extra against my best bowlers who are Yuzi Chahal and Sandeep Sharma. We have lost the game, we have to find out where we lost the game and we need to keep moving”, Sanju Samson added.
Notably, Sanju Samson was fined 30 per cent of his match fee for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct during the game.
Speaking on the match, Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to bowl where Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abishek Porel opened the inning for Delhi Capitals.
The duo made a 60 runs stand for the first wicket and made a decent opening for Delhi Capitals. With Abishek Porel’s 36 balls 65, Delhi’s score moves to a better position.
Tristan Stubbs scored a quick-fire 41 off 20 deliveries and led Delhi to score 221 runs for 8 wickets at the end of 20 overs.
On the other hand, Rajasthan Royals made a struggling start as they lost their first wicket for just 4 runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal who was included in India’s T20 World Cup 2024 squad scored just 4 runs and was dismissed in the second delivery of the inning.
Following the wicket, Sanju Samson and Buttler made an impressive stand and scored 63 runs for the second wicket. Axar Patel broke the partnership by dismissing Buttler for 19 runs.
Though RR’s middle order failed to make an impact on the scoreboard, their skipper threatened the opponents with his powerful strikes. But Mukesh Kumar dismissed the well-settled Sanju Samson for 86 runs and changed the game flow.
At the end of 20 overs, Rajasthan Royals managed to score 201 runs for 8 wickets loss and lost the game by 20 runs. Kuldeep Yadav who bagged 2 wickets in 4 overs at an economy of 6.20 was named as the player of the match.
