On Tuesday night (May 15), Rajasthan Royals (RR) suffered a 6-wicket defeat (with 12 balls to spare) in their important game against the hosts Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens (Kolkata).

KKR captain Dinesh Karthik sent the visitors to bat first after winning the toss. Despite RR had a stormy start, they were bowled out for just 142 runs in 19 overs due to their massive middle-order batting failure.

In reply, KKR comfortably chased down that target in 18 overs after losing their top four batsmen.

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

Also read: Match 49 (KKR vs RR) – Hits and Flops

Massive middle-order batting collapse

RR openers Rahul Tripathi and Jos Buttler provided a thrashing start for the visitors as they put a 63-run partnership in just 28 balls. But after the opening partnership was broken in the next delivery, RR batting suffered a big collapse.

While Tripathi and Buttler scored 27 runs and 39 runs respectively, lower-order batsman Jaydev Unadkat (26 runs) was the only other batsman in that innings to reach the 20-run mark.

Also read: (KKR vs RR) – Turning Point of the Match

Wickets were falling in regular intervals during the RR innings. Apart from the opening partnership, there was the only one another partnership to reach the 20-run mark and that was the eighth-wicket partnership between Jaydev Unadkat and Ish Sodhi for 21 runs.

The pathetic batting destroyed a valuable start by the openers and ultimately that cost the game too.