With only two wins in eight games, Rajasthan Royals head coach Rahul Dravid has acknowledged that his team can’t afford to make many mistakes in the remaining six games of the league phase. The inaugural champions find themselves in a must-win territory and they would need to tick all the right boxes.
But RR have been struggling with both bat and ball and it has led to their downfall. RR batters are not finishing the matches they should be finishing whereas the bowlers are not hitting the right spots. In the last two games, RR have suffered heart-breaking losses against Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Super Giants despite needing only nine runs in the final over.
Rahul Dravid said in a presser on Wednesday, “We know we have to play well to be still alive in this tournament. Every game from here on, the position we find ourselves in, we can’t afford to make many mistakes. We’ve got to start climbing that table quickly and we’ve got to start winning games quickly, there’s no options, no chances of slipping up anymore.”
All the RR frontline bowlers have conceded their runs at an economy rate of more than nine as they haven’t been accurate.
On the other hand, the home pitches are making the headlines as teams are struggling to win at home. Dravid said it would take some time for the players to get accustomed to the pitches after the teams were rejigged following the mega-auction.
The former Indian head coach added, “I’m not really sure what specific franchises might have wanted from their curators or from their pitches. But yeah, I think home advantage, generally, the teams are new as well, right? It’s the first year of a big auction cycle, so for a lot of the players, even though they may be your home players, they are playing for those teams or those grounds for the first time. So maybe sometimes, I think that when you just have a big auction and there’s a change of squad and a change of team, the home advantage may not be that significant.”
RR will need to come up with a collective effort to stay afloat in the tournament.
