Rajasthan Royals stand-in captain Riyan Parag rued poor execution of bowlers after they suffered a 44-run loss against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad on Sunday.
Parag surprisingly asked SRH to bat first on a belter of a pitch and the home team’s batters had a huge feast. Travis Head continued his rich form scoring 67 runs off just 31 balls whereas Ishan Kishan scored a brilliant knock of 106 runs off just 47 balls with the help of 11 four and six sixes.
Kishan completed his hundred off just 45 balls as he batted at the top of his game. The top six SRH batters scored their runs at a strike rate of more than 200 as they took RR bowlers to the cleaners.
RR gun fast bowler Jofra Archer conceded 76 runs in his quota of four overs, which are the most expensive figures in IPL history. Barring Nitish Rana, who bowled a solitary over, all RR bowlers conceded their runs at an economy rate of more than 10.
Riyan Parag said after the loss, “It was tough, just like I expected. Credit to SRH but we could have executed better. Will have a sit down and chat about what we could have done better.”
On choosing to bowl first, Parag said, “I feel collectively we took that decision, it was the right decision but it was about executing better. You’d mind if 280 is on the board, at the toss I said 200 was what I expected but 220-240 would have been a good score to chase down. Quite a few positives, the way Dhruv and Sanju batted was brilliant. And then Hettie and Shivam as well later on. Tushar bowled really well, Sandy paaji did well. A win or a less, we take the learnings and then we forget.”
Rajasthan Royals will next take on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati on Wednesday.
