Back to Back Defeats for the Rajasthan Royals

Back to Back Defeats for the Rajasthan Royals

After an impressive start in this edition of the IPL, winning 5 out of 5 matches, the Rajasthan Royals seem to have lost their way. They have lost their last 2 matches against Punjab and Banglore. Even after scoring 191 against the Kings XI Punjab, they couldn’t defend the total and lost in the Super over. This defeat was somewhat still fresh in their mind when they faced Banglore in their next match. The tall batting lineup of the Banglore and their inability to defend a par total in the previous match was probably playing in their mind.

Smith looks to get a move on Source

They were put into bat by the Banglore side and right from the first over they looked to take on the bowling. From their temperament it looked like they would not settle for anything less than 200. This was crucial as due to this very strategy they kept loosing wickets at regular intervals. No one scored big and even though Watson and Smith got starts they couldn’t quite capitalize on it. The moment they tried to go for the big shot they lost their wicket. By the end of 14th over when teams look to accelerate, the Rajasthan Royals had lost too many wickets to get a move on. They crumbled for a saddening total of 130 runs on their home ground where the average first innings score is 166.

Too easy a task for AB Source

With batting prowess of the Royal Challengers Banglore, it was no rocket science to predict who would emerge victorious. The poor batting form of Gayle was a reason of worry for the RCB and it continued today as well. He got out early in the innings for a score of 20. From then on the two most experienced batsmen of RCB, Kohli and AB played brilliantly and gave no chance to the Rajasthan Royals to make their way back in the game. They won comfortably by 9 wickets and 23 balls to spare.