Kamal Ghorui
Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag played down his side’s heavy defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad, calling it just a minor setback and urging his team to move on quickly. RR were handed a crushing 57-run loss after being blown away early in the chase of 217. The damage was done in the very first over when debutant pacer Praful Hinge struck three times, removing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius to leave Rajasthan reeling. Reflecting on the loss, Parag admitted that the team had little time to dwell on emotions and acknowledged SRH’s strong execution with the ball. “Not a lot of time to feel the emotions, to be honest. We lost back-to-back wickets, credit to the way they bowled. Probably a few miscalculations from us, but we will just take this as a blip and not think about it too much.” Parag also assessed the pitch conditions, suggesting that chasing might have been the better option, although he conceded that RR’s batting collapse hurt them more than anything else. “(on the pitch) It was pretty good actually. I felt bowling second might have been better, probably because we lost wickets. It was a little sticky with the new ball with the shine on. After the shine was gone, I felt, it slowed down a bit and we could have bowled second, but then that’s again hindsight and we could have batted way better.” The RR skipper reserved special praise for SRH’s debutant seamers, particularly Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain, who combined to dismantle the batting line-up. “Absolutely, I think I’ve not seen them a lot domestically, but I think I played Sakib once when I played against Bihar versus Assam. But they bowled beautifully. I felt the pressure they had with the home crowd supporting and chanting their names and stuff like that. I felt the way they bowled the first four overs, first four, five overs, I think really was beautiful.” Parag also explained his tactical call not to use Ravindra Jadeja with the ball, citing the form of Ishan Kishan as a key factor. “(on not bowling Jadeja) I felt we started really well. Probably could have done a few things here and there. Jaddu bhai, I don’t know, just split second decision. Ishan was batting really well, so I didn’t want to take that chance. Trusted Bishnoi with the overs. But I felt they were 30 over par for sure with the way the wicket was playing.” Despite being reduced to 9/5, RR showed some fight through a 118-run stand between Donovan Ferreira and Jadeja, eventually reaching 159. Parag took that as a positive, highlighting the depth in the batting unit. “As far as batting is concerned, I think being five wickets down for nine runs and still getting 160, that says a lot about the depth of our batting.” Looking ahead, the young captain remained optimistic, insisting the team would quickly regroup for their next game. “Absolutely, like I said, it’s just a blip and we move ahead to Kolkata and do something better.”
