On Sunday afternoon, hosts Rajasthan Royals (RR) suffered an 11-run defeat against the visiting in-form team Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Sawai Mansingh Stadium (Jaipur).

SRH captain Kane Williamson decided to bat first after winning the toss. With the major help from opener Alex Hales (45 runs) and skipper Kane Williamson’s knock (63 runs), SRH put a total of 151/7 in 20 overs.

In reply, opener and skipper Ajinkya Rahane’s important unbeaten 65-run knock couldn’t help the team for victory as their innings finished on 140/6 (20 overs).

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

Failed to take early wickets

After dismissing opener Shikhar Dhawan at the early stage, another SRH opener Alex Hales and no.3 batsman Kane Williamson provided a very important 92-run partnership for the second wicket. That partnership set the stage for SRH to put a good total on the board. It was more than ten overs spell when RR was wicket-less.

Despite the hosts bowled superbly at the death, that wicket-less period proved a vital moment of the game.

Skipper Rahane failed to gear up

Though Rajasthan captain Ajinkya Rahane was unbeaten on 65 runs off 53 balls after coming to bat as an opener, the right-handed batsman failed to gear up in the entire game. While the 29-year-old hit 5 fours and only six in that innings, he was able to hit only six in the last five overs.

As a set batsman, Rahane had to take the responsibility to gear up and score quickly in the second half of the innings. Though he was set and unbeaten till the end of the game, he was never looking too dangerous for the bowlers.

Middle-order batting failure

After a good 59-run partnership between Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson for the second wicket, it was looking like that the hosts would chase the target easily. But, the middle-order batsmen failed drastically in that innings as they couldn’t chase the small target.

In the last ten overs, the hosts’ batsmen only hit two fours and one six. As the middle-order failed to stay in the crease for a long time or failed to hit boundaries, the target was slowly moving away for RR.

Once again superb bowling and high-quality fielding from SRH

SRH team is looking like a great bowling and fielding team in this season as they again performed well and secured a brilliant victory in the low-scoring game. This time they defended the total of 151 runs as the hosts only managed to score 140 runs.

Every SRH bowler did their jobs well with the ball while their superb fielding efforts were making tougher for the RR batsmen to chase down the 152-run target.