IPL 2020: 3 Mistakes committed by the losing side in RR vs SRH

Rajasthan Royals faced their seventh defeat of IPL 2020 as Sunrisers Hyderabad whipped them by 8 wickets. RR looked far behind in all the departments as SRH snatched the control of the game quite early. Their scoring rate was quite low and they were not able to finish on a high as well. The biggest disappointment was their overseas stars, Ben Stokes, Steve Smith and Jos Buttler were not in their prime form even in the must-win game and RR were restricted to 154 runs.

While defending a below-par total as well, Jofra Archer didn’t get any support from the other end. With this defeat, RR are almost out of the playoffs race, apart from winning all the remaining three matches, they would need other results to go in their favour as well. Though the game saw a clinical victory for SRH, RR could have won the game if they had avoided making some mistakes.

Here are the three mistakes committed by RR in match 40, RR vs SRH:-

1. The slow partnership between Ben Stokes and Sanju Samson

RR started their innings quite well, with Robin Uthappa scoring at a brisk rate. However, as soon as Uthappa departed, Stokes and Samson tried to establish a partnership. As RR had so much batting to come, at least one of them should have batted freely to boost the scoring rate, but the same didn’t happen. They were able to score only 56 runs in the 49 balls they played together and this turned out to be a major setback to RR’s score.

2. Not promoting Rahul Tewatia up the order

Even when they started slowly, RR could have tried to accelerate and end the innings at a high. With Jos Buttler, Rahul Tewatia could have been a perfect power-hitter. The southpaw is in amazing form this season and he has struck some massive hits in previous games. Also, as both the spinners of SRH would have turned the ball into the left-hander, it could have been much easier for him to score big shots.

3. Not giving the third over to Jofra Archer in the powerplay

Jofra Archer is their leading wicket-taker and the strike bowler. Even when RR was defending a modest total, Archer grabbed two big scalps as he dismissed David Warner and Jonny Bairstow in his first two overs. Knowing that Manish Pandey was SRH’s only reliable batsman remaining, Steve Smith should have given one additional over to Archer to grab another wicket. As it was not done, Vijay Shankar and Manish Pandey stitched a significant partnership which turned out to be a game-changing factor.