Head coach Rahul Dravid is hopeful that the young players on the Rajasthan Royals will soon get a shot at some tough international cricket, which he believes will help them come back even stronger for the next IPL season. The Royals faced their fifth straight loss after narrowly losing to Punjab Kings by 10 runs on Sunday.
In the post-match press conference, Dravid pointed out some promising performances from players like Jaiswal, Vaibhav, and Dhruv Jurel, saying, We have some talented young Indian batsmen, and they’ll improve even more over the next year. He mentioned that players like Vaibhav and Riyan will be busy playing cricket throughout the year, which will only benefit their game.
In this match, the Royals got off to a good start, reaching 76/1 in just under five overs while chasing a target of 220 but ultimately fell short. Dravid noted, We’ve come close a lot but haven’t been able to finish games. It’s been a tough season where we seem to give away 15-20 runs too many and, after good starts, our lower middle-order hasn’t quite delivered the big hits we need.
Punjab was struggling at 159 for five in the 16th over but managed to score 60 runs in the last four overs to finish at 219/5. Dravid mentioned, In five games, the margins have been really tight—10 runs, a tie, 1 run, 2 runs, and again 10 runs. It’s just a small number of hits that we need during those crucial moments, which we haven’t managed to pull off.
He also emphasized that the bowlers share the blame for the team’s struggles. We can’t just point fingers at the batsmen. To be honest, I didn’t think this wicket was a 220 score—not more than 195-200. We gave away about 20 extra runs. Looking at the stats, we’ve struggled with taking wickets and controlling runs, even after some decent starts. We definitely need to work on that for next season, he concluded.
