IPL 2023: Kumar Sangakkara inss Royals ‘still a very high-quality side’ after their fourth defeat in five games
Kumar Sangakkara, Rajasthan Stoyals director of cricket and head coach called his team’s performance “embarrassing” after their fourth defeat in the last five games but backed the side and said they atre still are a “very high-quality side.”
Gujarat Titans wr spinners Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad wreaked havoc as they routed Rajasthan Royals nine wickets. The Afghanan T20 specials shared five wickets for 39 runs in seven overs to help the defending champions and leaders edge closer to qualifying for the playoffs.
“It is embarrassing for anyone when you don’t play well,” he told reporters.
That was some performance @gujarat_titans 🙌#GT win the match 9 wickets and add another 2 points to their tally 👌
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/54xkkylMlx#TATAIPL | #RRvGT pic.twitter.com/fJKu9gmvLW
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) May 5, 2023
“We were very, very poor in terms of capitalising on the starts we got. We were showing intent for a while, but we were a little bit reckless, and then we had very, very little intent against the two spinners. Rashid bowled brilliantly, I thought Noor bowled really well as well, but that’s the time the batters need to step up and show more and more intent.
“Even a defence in T20 cricket has to have the intent of wanting to score. You work down the sequence of 6, 4, 3, 2, 1; or, if you’re under pressure, you go 4, 3, 2, 1. But you are always looking for opportunities to score, and at the minimum, getting off strike.
“And once that intent is shown, it doesn’t matter how good a bowler you are, you are always thinking that you can’t give the batter anything loose because you’re going to get put away. So that’s one area that we’ve got to really look at.”
Rashid Khan picked up 3-14 in four overs and Noor Ahmad took 2-25 in three overs in bamboozling Rajasthan to be all out for 118 runs in the 18th over at home.
Sangakkara lauded Ahmad’s peformance. He said: “The young man showed a lot of character. He didn’t have the greatest in terms of his first outing against us, but since then he has bowled exceptionally well.
🙌 pic.twitter.com/biBDQFMn7A
— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) May 5, 2023
“Again, it is just how you arrange your game against… so-called mystery spinners. And if you show intent, you see that Noor, with a lack of experience, can bowl balls that are hittable but you’ve got to get that rhythm going off rotation of strike, putting the bad balls away and constantly reversing pressure on the bowler.
“You can’t sit and wait in T20 cricket and let the bowlers bowl to us. But having said that, both Rashid and Noor bowled exceptionally well and not just that – their pace-bowling quartet came back into the game really well after not having the best of starts. So I think it’s all credit to Gujarat, the way they played, and we played a very poor game.”
Sangakkara insed that Jos Buttler’s lack of form doesn’t meant that he not a a quality player. The English batter ha smanaged only 93 runs in the last six games.
“For Jos, he had a great run last season,” Sangakkara said.
“He started off really well and all batters go through a cold streak and a hot streak. It doesn’t reduce the quality of the player and over a longer period of time, you find with highly-skilled players that it all equalises.
“It’s the same with Hetmyer. He’s been going through a rough patch after having started well again. But then that’s what a team is for. Other batters have to step up the slack and keep going and when they do fire it just adds to the impetus and the totals that we score. That’s just the nature of T20 cricket and the conversations have been very good. They’ve been fantastic in the team environment and I know that they’re trying their best to do as well as they can.”
