IPL 2021: Twitter reacts to Kane Williamson's mediocre captaincy against Rajasthan Royals

The 2016-champion Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) isn’t experiencing an ideal run in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The franchise is languishing at the last position on the points table with just one victory from six games. The torrid run in the tournament caused panic in the Hyderbad camp and they took some harsh calls including the sacking of David Warner as a captain.

Going into their seventh game of IPL 2021 against Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Arun Jaitely Stadium in Delhi, Sunrisers Hyderabad is being captained by a new skipper, Kane Williamson. The match commenced with the newly-appointed skipper Kane winning the toss and inviting the Sanju Samson & Men to bat first.

Williamson’s first match as a captain isn’t going as per the plan as the veteran is being highly criticized for his tactical decisions on the field. Many cricket fans seemed critical of the decisions taken by the New Zealand skipper. For a larger part of the bowling innings, Williamson seemed underprepared as a skipper and failed to use the bowlers judiciously.

Bowling in the powerplay, Willaimsom seemed impressive as he handed the ball to spinner Rashid Khan in the third over and he repaid the faith by scalping the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal. However, in the same over, the 30-year-old took a hasty decision of taking a DRS call and that cost the team a lot. In the next over by the ace spinner, Rashid managed to lbw Buttler but since SRH didn’t have DRS left, they couldn’t challenge the decision by the on-field umpire.

Jos Buttler fires SRH bowlers 

The SRH bowlers looked in control in the first ten overs as they bowled with discipline and on consistent lengths. The main reason behind the same was Rashid Khan completing all his four overs within 11 overs. This strategy invited a lot of criticism for the SRH skipper as in the last ten overs, the team was forced to use bowlers like Vijay Shankar and Mohammed Nabi, who went for a lot of runs.

In the second half of the first innings, RR’s opening batter Jos Buttler and skipper Sanju Samson took the opposition bowlers to cleaners. Buttler played the best innings of his entire T20 career as he smashed a stunning 124 runs in just 64 balls. He was aptly supported by Samson who added 48 runs to the scoreboard. The exploits by Jos resulted in RR posting a mammoth score of 220 on the board in their 20 overs and here is how Twitter reacted on Williamson’s captaincy.

#Williamson's wrong DRS call proving to be very costly in any format of the cricket around the world and it was strange to take DRS against #jaiswal , seems like gifted captaincy went wrong for Kane #SRHvRR #josbuttler #SRH

— akram shakeel (@akramshakeel3) May 2, 2021

David Warner to Kane Williamson after seeing his captaincy.#RRvSRH pic.twitter.com/Tg7gKi202Z

— Harshit Joshi (@joshiiharshit) May 2, 2021

Such strange captaincy from Williamson #SRHvsRR

— SunRisers (@iamdhaniii) May 2, 2021

I get a feeling like Kane Williamson is made scapegoat as Tom Moody already knows that this SRH is good for nothing. 🥺

In some way, Warner is lucky enough to not take this shit on his shoulders anymore.

— Arya Harish (@IAryaHarishI) May 2, 2021

I’ve seen Williamson doing exceptionally well in 2018 as a captain for SRH. But this doesn’t look like his captaincy, looks like he has been programmed to operate in a certain way.

— Preetamm_ (@preetaaamm) May 2, 2021

Clueless Captaincy by williamson he was using vijay shankar the great 3D player as a death bowler

— Abhimanyu (@RohitSh74637217) May 2, 2021

As a captain Kane Williamson was so poor this afternoon, 3 overs from your 5th bowler in last 6 overs.. rashid completed his quota in 11 over.. really don’t know what he was trying to do…

SENSELESS https://t.co/Ad31ytnXBz

— Haroon Malik (@MalikHaroon97) May 2, 2021

Captaincy disasterclass from Kane Williamson today, but no one will say a word about it 😹

— Dibya (@dibyafucknows) May 2, 2021

Knowing that @rashidkhan_19's that one big threat in the @SunRisers bowling attack. In hindsight could Williamson have held back one over of his for the later part of the innings?

Another retrospective question like yesterday. What do you guys think? #RRvsSRH #SRH

— Sriram Madhavan (@sriram_madhavan) May 2, 2021

Williamson need to take Rashid usage lessons from King Asghar?

— Dave (@CricketDave27) May 2, 2021

Finishing Rashid Khan within 11 overs is the biggest mistake made by Kane Williamson.#RRvSRH

— 𝐉.𝐈.𝐓.🚩 😷 (@JitRo45) May 2, 2021