Steve Smith cut a dejected figure as he said Rajasthan Royals’ defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore in their IPL 2020 match on Saturday was a ‘bitter pill to swallow’. The Royals were in control of the game for the most part of it before AB de Villiers came in and smashed a 22-ball 55 not out to help the Royal Challengers pull off a heist in Dubai.
When AB de Villiers walked out, RCB needed 76 off just 41 balls on a wicket that was slowing down as the innings progressed.
AB de Villiers also took his time to get going but once he switched gears, there was no stopping the South African great. De Villiers smashed 6 sixes and a boundary as RCB got to the target with 2 balls and 7 wickets to spare. Mr. 360 took Jaydev Unadkat to the cleaners in the 19th over, bringing down the equation from 35 off 11 balls to just 9 off the last over.
“Sure, it is a hard pill to swallow. Just got AB’d there. That’s two in a row we were in the box seat to win but didn’t. Disappointing. I think it was a good score on a slow wicket. I thought we built the pressure pretty well and it took a pretty special innings to take RCB home,” Steve Smith said.
Steve Smith defended his decision of giving the 19th over to Jaydev Unadkat after going against the norm of giving the penultimate over to the team’s best bowler in modern-day cricket. Unadkat gave away 25 runs and left nothing to bowl at for Jofra Archer in the final over.
“We wanted to use Jaydev to the bigger boundary, he bowls a lot of slower stuff into the wicket. Obviously boundary not big enough for AB,” Smith said.
Earlier in the day, Steve Smith overcame poor batting form to hit a 36-ball 57. He walked in at No. 4 after a good start given by Robin Uthappa, who was promoted to open the innings ahead of Jos Buttler.
