Image Credit- BCCI
Following their fourth straight loss against Punjab Kings in Guwahati, captain of the Rajasthan Royals Sanju Samson said his club is “going through failures” that must be fixed right now.
Although they had dropped three straight games before into Wednesday’s contest, the Royals had set the early pace in the tournament by winning eight of their first nine games. Samson was more direct in his evaluation following the Royals’ five-wicket loss to the Chennai Super Kings, despite his earlier insistence that the team was still playing “decent cricket” and “following the process” following the Royals’ Sunday setback.
“To be honest, we have to sit back and accept that we’re going through some failures,” Samson said. “When you lose four in a row, you have to find out what’s not working well in the team. When you are getting to the business end of the season, you need someone to raise their finger up and say, ‘I am going to win the game for the team’.
“Yes, this is a team sport, but we have a lot of match-winners in the side, and we need individuals to step up. So it’s about having the right characters who can play with passion, and singlehandedly win the game for us. If all of us try that, and even a couple [of players] manage to step up, it would make a difference. We need those characters who can carry us.”
Royals were playing their first home game at Guwahati this season and chose to bat on a wicket pitch that “wasn’t very high-scoring,” according to Samson. They scored only 144 for 9, which Samson said was at least 20-30 runs fewer than he’d have liked.
“We were expecting a better wicket, if I’m being honest. I don’t think it’s a 140 wicket, but maybe 160 or 170 with the power and batting we have.
“We’re not used to playing in these kind of wickets in this season when teams have been scoring 200 or 220. We had to play smart cricket and focus on the basics and build momentum, trying to get boundaries here and there.”