After suffering a defeat against Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson said they could have won the game if their batters had slammed more boundaries at regular intervals and believes that the decline in momentum during their innings is what cost them the game.
A fiery four-wicket haul by Nathan Ellis and a skilful exhibition of death bowling by Sam Curran in the final over helped Punjab Kings overcome a late flourish by the duo of Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel to clinch a five-run win over Rajasthan Royals in last over thriller in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) at Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati on Wednesday. “In games like these, momentums shift away from you pretty quickly. We started off very well. In the middle, we were expecting to get boundaries here and there. But we couldn’t and that’s where we lost it. Even after that, we did well to get close to the target. With a couple of boundaries here and there, we could have [won],” Samson said during the post-match conference.
The Royals captain stated that the physio needed time to perform stitches on Jos Buttler, who suffered a minor injury while fielding, and that Ravichandran Ashwin was sent to hold the other batters.
“Buttler had a small injury, which happened during fielding. The physio didn’t have enough time to do his stitches. So, the idea was to send Ashwin bhai and to hold everyone back. He [Buttler] is fine…he had his stitches, batted well and should be fine,” explained Samson.