- Rajasthan Royals lost their first match of IPL 2020 and Kolkata Knight Riders put their all-round-display by winning the match.
- The side of Steve Smith suffered the top-batting collapse and also they were not in the game.
The 12th Match of the 13th Edition of IPL 2020 saw Kolkata Knight Riders registering a strategic win against Rajasthan Royals.
The side of Steve Smith would have been unbeaten into this game, but the top order showed poor batting display and ensured that they were never in the game. A fiery spell by Jofra Archer for Rajasthan Royals while Shubham Gill & Eoin Morgan played well.
Here are the 3 tactical mistakes during the game of RR vs KKR IPL 2020. Let us have a look:
- Was the time correct to drop back the down order by Steve Smith?
Rajasthan Royals in the first game of IPL 2020 against Chennai Super Kings, Captain Steve Smith gave a surprise by coming to open the batting phase. He scored an astonishing fifty for his team and repeated the same in the second game against Kings XI Punjab.
Although the opening batting role suited Steve Smith and je looks dangerous in that position against the fellow team. But RR needs his presence to bat lower down the order, either at No 03 or No 04 as the team was suffering a loss of Ben Stokes. The middle order comprises of Riyan Parag, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Tewatia and Tom Curran.
This middle-order is not enough to win the game consistently one by one and it is also the fact that they play two of their matches at Sharjah, must have analyze their weak points.
- RR looked forward to attack more on the new ball:
Rajasthan Royals have hit over 200 runs in both of their IPL tournament and the biggest reason is their initial attacking batting right in the powerplay. But as the place changes from Sharjah to Dubai, they didn’t adjust their plan of game.
Steve Smith seemed to made up his mind to attach Pat Cummins but after missing a couple of balls, the former Australian Captain got inside-edged in to the hands of Karthik behind the stumps. Consequently Samson also fell in the 5th over by a pull shot to Sunil Narine at the mid-wicket.
The rest of the top order fall soon, dashing any hope of miracle run-chase. RR needs to be more circumspect with the new ball in the coming matches.
- RR played the game with just 4 full-time batsman:
As we have seen in the past two games of Rajasthan Royals, it had only 4 full-time batsman- Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Steve Smith and Robin Uthappa. Smith and Samson played excellent in the first two games that took RR to win but their deficiencies exposed in this game.
RR looks very thin in the middle-order without Ben Stokes and it needs Yashasvi Jaiswal and David Miller. Going with 7 bowlers in a team is a good plan to win the match but not a suitable and sustainable in a long run.
RR must reshuffle their batting order immediately to win the next game. In the next game of IPL 2020 we might be seeing RR with good strategic plan and the batting line-up.
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