Rajasthan Royals had a below par batting performance during their second qualifier against SRH.
Rajasthan Royals succumbed to a 36-run defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second qualifier of IPL 2024 played at Chennai. After being put in to bat first, Sunrisers scored 175-9, which seemed like a below par score at the time. For SRH, Heinrich Klaasen scored an important half-century while Travis Head and Rahul Tripathi starred with sparkling cameos. Avesh Khan and Trent Boult picked up three wickets apiece for Rajasthan.
Chasing 176 to win, Royals could only scored 139-7 in 20 overs. Apart from Dhruv Jurel and Yashasvi Jaiswal, none of the Royals batters could make a significant contribution on the big stage. Sunrisers’ bowlers bowled collectively well to derail the chase. Surprisingly, left-arm spinning allrounders Shahbaz Ahmed and Abhishek Sharma made the difference with 5 wickets for 47 runs between them.
RR middle order batter Riyan Parag was batting on 6 runs off 9 balls when he tried to release the pressure and launch left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed over cow corner. But the mistimed shot was easily taken by Abhishek Sharma at deep midwicket.
Former India opener was furious with Parag’s dismissal and slammed the youngster for his reckless during his commentary stint.
“Seriously, seriously? What’s the use of all the talent if you’re not going to think. What kind of shot is that? Seriously. So much talent… if you don’t have the temperament, it’s not going to work. So what if you had a few dot balls? You can make up for that,” Gavaskar said on-air.
Parag was dismissed for just 6 runs which led to a flurry of dismissals and pushed back Rajasthan Royals in a hole. They lost Ravichandran Ashwin and Shimron Hetmyer in quick succession and could not recover thereafter despite a valiant effort from Dhruv Jurel.
Riyan Parag had a fantastic season with the bat as he top-scored for Rajasthan Royals with 573 runs in 16 games at an average of 52.09 and a strike rate of 149.21. Parag has been highly-rated for some time now but had been unable to replicate his domestic success at the IPL before this season. But IPL 2024 turned out to be a breakthrough season for him.
With this defeat, Rajasthan Royals’ search for their second IPL title continues. They had won the inaugural edition of IPL in 2008 but have been unable to lift the trophy since.
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