Steve Smith Shares the Reason of Their Defeat against Delhi Capitals
After having started in a great way against Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals failed to make it to the cut at the end and the captain Steve Smith acknowledged that they were ahead before losing the game, courtesy the opening partnership.
All-rounder Ben Stokes and in-form Jos Buttler provided Royals with a flying start and they looked in fine touch in the first three overs as well before Anrich Nortje’s fiery pace dismantled the Rajasthan batting order. On the other hand, the captain Steve Smith’s poor run with the bat continued as he once again failed to score big and was dismissed for mere 1 as well.
“We needed to take it a bit deeper from some batters and we were not able to do that. We thought we bowled well at the backend and restricted them to 160-odd, that was probably around par on this wicket,” Smith said after the 13-run defeat.
“We got off to a good start with Jos and Stokesy, then we lost a couple wickets and got another partnership between Stokesy and Sanju, we lost wickets in clumps again and on slow wickets it is hard to make up too many runs at the backend,” he again added.
Meanwhile, Ben Stokes, who was playing his only second game in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, scored 41 and built a partnership with Sanju Samson (25), but they couldn’t stay for long in the middle. Later, Robin Uthappa (32) and Rahul Tewatia also tried their best but Delhi bowlers’ economical bowling turned the table for them.
“It has been the trend in the tournament, the boys that have the air speed have had the most success, Jofra has been great for us and same with Nortje and Rabada for Delhi. They changed things around tonight with bowling with pace, taking pace off and varying it nicely, we weren’t able to deal with that,” he concluded.