Hosts Rajasthan Royals (RR) lost on Wednesday night after the visiting team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) beat them by 7 wickets (with 7 balls to spare) at Sawai Mansingh Stadium (Jaipur).

KKR decided to field first after winning the toss. The hosts Rajasthan managed to put 160/8 on the board at the end of 20 overs while KKR successfully chased down the target in 18.5 overs after losing three wickets only.

Now, we will briefly talk about some important reasons for RR’s defeat in this game.

Apart from the openers, other batsmen’s failures

While Rajasthan opening batsmen Ajinkya Rahane and D’Arcy Short provided a great 54-run partnership for the first wicket, other batsmen struggled against the KKR bowlers. Apart from Rahane (36 off 19 balls) and Short (44 off 43 balls), Jos Buttler (24* off 18 balls) was the only other man to reach the 20-run mark in that innings.

In fact, only Short faced 20 or more deliveries in that innings which means that other batsmen failed to stay long on the pitch.

Ajinkya Rahane’s weak captaincy   

Rajasthan captain Ajinkya Rahane had a weak performance in the leadership role. Specially earlier in the second innings, Rahane failed to set the fielding positively as he continuously altered with the fielding in almost every moment. It was hard for the bowlers to concentrate and that leaked more runs in the crucial early stage which took away the game from the host side.

Failed to take early wickets

While the team just managed to put 160 runs on the board, it was very important to take some early wickets which could provide some new extra pressure for the visiting team. Though the home team dismissed the KKR opener Chris Lynn for a duck in the very first over but failed to make further progress on that. The 69-run second wicket partnership between another opener Sunil Narine and no.3 batsman Robin Uthappa set the tone for the visiting side, which later resulted in a comfortable victory for KKR.

Lack of spinners

While most of the spinners were effective in this game from both side, Rajasthan had lack of spinners in the squad. KKR captain Dinesh Karthik used spinners for 14 overs while the home team used the spinners for only 7 overs. Spinners provided the important wickets at the crucial time but the home team was facing lack of spinners in the squad.

While spinners took total 6 wickets and had the 6.95 average economy rate in this game, pacers claimed total 3 wickets and had the exact 10 average economy rate in this game. It clearly showed that the condition was helping the spinners but Rajasthan Royals was able to use the spinners for just 7 overs.