'It was not an ideal situation to take a risk' - Kumar Sangakkara opens up on Miller's dismissal against DC

Rajasthan Royals were up against Delhi capitals in the first doubleheader of the UAE leg of the IPL. The Royals initially dominated the proceedings by restricting Delhi’s strong batting lineup to a total of 154. A lot of hopes were pinned on David Miller to hold the fort of the side but he walked back to the hut looking to dominate the bowler. However, Rajasthan Royals director of cricket Kumar Sangakkara has now opened up on Miller’s dismissal.

Evin Lewis and Chriss Morris missed the match owing to niggles which made way for Tabraiz Shamsi and Miller in the team. Delhi got the hold of the game by picking up frequent wickets as they sent back RR’s openers early on. Whilst that, Miller was stumped by Rishabh Pant off Ravichandran Ashwin’s delivery. Sangakkara thus asserted that probably it was not the right time for Miller to take a risk.

“I think you can look at David Miller’s dismissal in a couple of ways. He is an attacking player and this is a shot he usually plays. Unfortunately, he was up against a really smart bowler with a lot of experience. Probably right, it was not the ideal situation to take a risk, we had lost a couple of wickets. But that’s T20 cricket,” said Sangakkara during the post-match press conference.

We should have chased 154 with the batting we had: Kumar Sangakkara

Chasing down a total of 155, skipper Sanju Samson was the only one who provided some resistance to the side. He did not receive enough assistance from any other batters owing to which RR couldn’t get past the total. The Sri Lankan legend shed light on these aspects and praised the DC bowlers for not allowing Samson to score freely. He also added that with the depth in the batting, the team should have chased the total.

“I think it was a tough one for skipper Sanju Samson, he was batting well. All we needed was someone to stay with him and unfortunately, losing wickets regularly did not allow Sanju to run free early on. Delhi boys bowled smartly and they managed to stay away from areas of Sanju’s strengths. We can go back and analyze whichever way, we should have chased 154 with the batting we had, and we were just not good enough on the day,” Sangakkara added.