The first match out of Sharjah and Rajasthan Royals (RR) got absolutely hammered by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 on Wednesday. While many had predicted adapting to the dimensions of the Dubai venue as a ticky subject for RR, skipper Steve Smith admitted that it was one of the prime reasons behind the team’s defeat.
Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, Smith asserted that the team failed to execute the plans they had set as some players still continued to apply themselves the way they were during the first two games.
“Didn’t quite go to plan. That happens in T20 cricket sometimes, we have a few areas to improve on, and keep moving forward. You could go one way or another (with the toss). KKR like to chase, so we planned to put their death bowling under pressure but obviously couldn’t do that as we lost too many wickets upfront,” he said.
“Few of us still thought we were playing in Sharjah. It did (feel a lot different), the far side is a very big side and we didn’t see too many balls going there and the other side is slightly shorter. We probably didn’t adapt to the dimensions and the wicket, also dropped a few catches which cost us,” he further conceded as the Royals didn’t just miss out on clearing the ropes but also dropped catches because of the misjudgment of the dimensions of the ground.
From being 15/1 at one stage where Smith was the first batsman to depart, Rajasthan went down 42/5 as the likes of Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, Robin Uthappa and Riyan Parag all fell victims to KKR pacers. It was only Tom Curran who managed to dig deep and hit a solitary half-century to get RR somewhere close to KKR’s total.
