The captain of Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Dravid was disappointed with performance of his batsmen in the 43rd match of the IPL 2012 vs.Delhi Daredevils.
The match was played on Tuesday, May 1st, 2012 at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur and Delhi Daredevils won that by a huge margin of six wickets with 28 balls to spare.
Ajinkya Rahane once again displayed a fine batting while opening the innings and scored 42 runs off just 32 balls with seven fours. He is the top scorer in the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League so far by plundering 458 runs in 10 outings at a superb average of 57.25, the best of unbeaten 103 with two fifties and has provided excellent start to the team throughout the tournament.
Dravid hailed the performance of Virender Sehwag who thrashed 73 runs off just 38 deliveries which comprised one six and 12 fours. He contributed 96 runs devastating partnership for the second wicket with Kevin Pietersen in mere 9.5 overs which changed the direction of the game. Sehwag created a history in the IPL by hammering five consecutive fifties and he is in great nick at the moment. Rahul Dravid praised the cracking batting performance by the two batsmen by commenting,
“Rahane was terrific again. He is getting us starts. If we had got Viru out early, I though we stood a chance, but he is in terrific form. Though it hurts, he is good to watch.”
Rajasthan Royals had an excellent start as the innings was opened by the skipper himself with the youngster Ajinkya Rahane. The duo provided an ideal start of 71 runs in 8.4 overs against the formidable bowling attack of Delhi Daredevils. Dravid led from the front by smashing 57 runs scored off just 43 balls with the assistance of seven fours which was not capitalised by the incoming batsmen.
The middle and lower order batting collapsed and the batsmen like Shane Watson, Owais Shah, Brad Hodge and Ashok Menaria surrendered against the lethal attack of the rival team. All of them were unable to enter the double figures which let their team down and a solid opening stand was lost altogether. Dravid presumed that his team was in a position to score around 180 runs which could have been a defendable total but lack of commitment cost them the match. He said,
“This was the first match in the tournament where we played poor cricket. Now we have lost four matches in a row and we need to bounce back. We had a good start and we thought 180 was a par score. But we lost too many wickets. We played poor cricket.”
Rajasthan Royals lost their previous match against Delhi Daredevils with a close margin of just one run on April 29, 2012 at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. The hosts scored 152 runs in the allotted 20 overs for the loss of six wickets and the visitors managed 151 runs with seven wickets in hand when the required quota of overs was consumed.
Rajasthan Royals have played 10 matches, won 6 and lost 4 and earned 8 points at a net run rate of -0.061. They are currently placed at no.6 and in fact the recent loss against Delhi Daredevils was the fourth successive in the event for them and Rahul Dravid has blamed his batsmen for the debacle.
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