IPL 2023: How RR suffered a slump in second half of the season

At the start of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, Rajasthan Royals (RR) were considered strong favourites to lift the trophy, especially after their brilliant run in 2022 when they reached the final.

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And not that long ago, RR were on a roll.  Sanju Samson-led side had begun the season in some fashion: winning four out of the first five matches and topping the league at one stage.

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However, their recent run has them hanging by a thread as far as their hopes of qualifying for the playoffs are concerned.

Just two wins out of their last six matches mean RR are placed sixth in the standings with 12 points. They are level on points with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS), but RCB and PBKS have two games left to play. On the other hand, RR have just one more game to go and get those crucial two points. They face PBKS in Mohali on Friday, but even a win there would take their points tally to just 14 and may not be enough for them to go through, unless other results go in their favour.

Rajasthan Royals’ batting lineup got a reality check when they were bundled out for just 59, their second lowest IPL score, against RCB. Yashasvi Jaiswal (0) was out for a rare duck, while Jos Buttler was dismissed without scoring not for the first time this season. And all Samson (4) could manage was a boundary through the cover region.

Samson was clueless as to where it all fell apart. “That is a great question, actually. I was thinking about it and where it went wrong. Sorry, I do not have an answer for that,” he said.

Buttler, Samson struggles

Yashasvi Jaiswal (575 runs from 13 matches) has arguably been one of the best and consistent batters this season. But it is the form of the two veterans in the side, Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson, that has been questionable as far as RR’s inconsistent run is concerned.

Buttler has four fifties this IPL but his lack of ability to score runs at will has hindered RR’s momentum in the second half of the season. Four ducks does not help his case.

As for Samson, despite registering scores of 60, 66* and 48*, the Keralite has looked far from his usual best.

Aakash Chopra, an IPL expert with JioCinema, feels that RR’s recent struggles began with Buttler and Samson’s lack of form.

“It started with Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson losing form. If two of your top three batters are going through a rough patch, and if that happens to be coinciding, then it becomes a huge issue. Buttler completely going off the boil and Sanju suddenly losing form after starting quite decently, I think that started the rut,” said Chopra during a media interaction.

Questionable tactics

Apart from their batting, RR have been questioned for their tactical decisions. They failed to defend 214 against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), and reason for that may be the substituting of West Indian pacer Obed McCoy in the 15^th over. This meant McCoy was unable to bowl the death overs and the 19^th over was given to an inexperienced Kuldip Yadav.

SRH still needed 41 off 12 balls to win before Kuldip came to bowl the final over, but the medium pacer went for 24 runs, which put SRH just back in it.

Before being taken off, McCoy had bowled just one over where he had gone for 13 runs.

SRH needed 17 off the last six balls to steal the game. This was brought down to five runs from a ball. But, a costly no-ball from Sandeep Sharma gave SRH a freebie which was duly taken by Abdul Samad with a six.

These decisions at crunch situations have haunted RR this season, and Aakash Chopra feels that tactically speaking, RR should have had a sixth bowler against RCB.

“Sometimes it becomes counterproductive, as when you see other teams who tend to keep things a little simpler. You find Rajasthan is never that team. Even in the game against Bangalore, it baffles me how you can have five bowling options when there is an Impact Player rule available. That means that you haven’t got your team right,” said Aakash.

“I mean, how can you not have the sixth bowler? So, whichever team has five bowling options and doesn’t have a sixth bowling option, in this day and age with the Impact Player rule, you have to question that thought process and that did happen,” he questioned.

“Therefore, you end up conceding more than what you should have. Being dismissed for 59 wouldn’t have helped, but things like this have happened a few more times with Rajasthan this year as compared to somebody else,” explained the 45-year-old.

Despite some glimpses of aggressive batting from Jaiswal, their overall batting unit has let down RR for a major part of IPL 2023. So has their death bowling, which they will hope to rectify by the time they face Punjab Kings on Friday. Qualify for playoffs or not, RR have a lot to fix as they prepare for the final league game of the season.

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