Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri believes KL Rahul could have taken a few more chances against Royal Challengers Bangalore after they lost the Eliminator by 14 runs at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday. Rahul went on to score a good knock of 79 runs from 58 balls but a lot of cricket boffins reckon he should have scored his runs at a better strike rate as LSG was chasing a big score of 208 runs.
Rahul scored only one boundary between overs 7 and 13 as he failed to take the attack against RCB spinners. LSG could only manage 49 runs in these six overs and it came back to bite them in the end.
Furthermore, LSG had too much to do in the final five overs and he could only manage 50 runs in the same period to fall behind the eight ball. Rahul scored his runs at a strike rate of 136.21 whereas Deepak Hooda scored 45 runs from 26 balls at a strike rate of 173.08.
Shastri believes LSG could have taken the attack a bit earlier as they were chasing a big score and had to keep up with the asking rate.
“They should have gone a little earlier. Sometimes, you wait too long but here, between the 9th and the 14th over, they should have been someone who should have been targeted, especially in that partnership,” Ravi Shastri told Star Sports.
“When Hooda and Rahul were going, I think even though he did as well as he did, KL could have taken a little more chances because Hooda was going. Take a little more chances and he could have targetted someone between the 9th and the 13th over because Harshal was going to come back in the end. “If they had got the required rate down at the stage, that would have made RCB a little nervous.”
On the other hand, KL Rahul reckons Harshal Patel’s two overs in the middle overs pushed them back. Patel conceded only eight runs in the first two overs he bowled and the asking rate climbed up after that.
“In the middle I think Harshal’s (Patel) two in the middle I think pushed us back a little bit because he went of 7 or 8 runs. He didn’t give away much and he really changed the pace when he bowled to the field and that’s where we were pushed back a little bit,” Rahul told the press on Thursday.
“As I said, it was just 2 hits away and if we couldn’t that in the middle overs, probably we would have won this game.”
