Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson heaped praise on Gujarat Titans batters, especially their skipper Hardik Pandya after the inaugural champions were beaten by a huge margin of 37 runs at the Dr. DY Sports Academy, Mumbai on Thursday. Gujarat posted a par score of 192 runs after Sanju Samson won the toss and decided to bat first.
Hardik Pandya continued his good form as he scored his second consecutive fifty however this was a more fluent one than the previous game. The talismanic batter scored an unbeaten knock of 87 runs off just 52 balls with the help of eight fours and four sixes.
Pandya played at the top of his game as he scored his runs at a strike rate of 167.31. Furthermore, Abhinav Manohar and David Miller played handy knocks for the new franchise. Manohar scored 43 runs off 28 balls and added 86 runs with his skipper. Moreover, Miller, who has had a quiet tournament so far, added the finishing touches with a fine cameo of 14-ball 31.
On the other hand, Rajasthan Royals were given a blistering start by Jos Buttler as he scored a quickfire knock of 54 runs off just 24 balls. However, the middle order could not get going as RR kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Shimron Hetmyer, Riyan Parag and Jimmy Neesham all got off to starts but could not get their team over the line.
Sanju Samson said in the post-match presentation, “You can say that (if Gurajat got 10-15 extra runs). But I would like to give credit to their batters. Hardik played a very good innings, they played really well to get that score. If we had wickets in hand this was chasable I feel. We were almost there in terms of run rate, in the powerplay we had a better run rate actually, But we kept losing wickets. Freaky niggle last night in training, definitely missed him (Boult). Hopefully he will be back soon.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals also experimented in their batting order as they sent Ravichandran Ashwin at one down but the move didn’t work as he was dismissed after scoring eight runs.
Samson added, “Hardik had a really good day today, batted, bowled and fielded well. I have played enough number of years in this league to understand that each game is crucial. Very important to learn and comeback stronger in the next game. I was doing No. 3 continuously till last season. So we decided to have that flexibility, come down at No. 4 or 5 or wherever the team needs me. Having someone like R Ashwin allows us to do that, Devdutt Padikkal batted 3 in the first three games. So it all depends on the combination we are playing.”
Rajasthan Royals will next take on Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai.
