This was meant to be the year when Rajasthan Royals took that excruciatingly difficult final step. Runners-up to Gujarat Titans in 2022, they came into this season with a squad capable of going the distance. And when they racked up hugely impressive away wins over Chennai Super Kings, contenders again after the 2022 blip, and Gujarat in back-to-back games, many experienced onlookers had them down as favourites.
Just over a fortnight into the season, Rajasthan sat pretty with a 4-1 record. Trent Boult was picking up new-ball wickets, Sandeep Sharma was outfoxing no less a finisher than MS Dhoni with his yorkers, and most teams had few answers to the wiles of Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin. Yashasvi Jaiswal had once again given notice of a precocious talent, Jos Buttler was carrying on where he left off in 2022, and Sanju Samson was making former players ooh and aah with the brilliance of his strokeplay.
That was then. Now, with one game left to play, against Punjab Kings in Dharamsala on Friday, Rajasthan no longer have control of their play-off destiny. Before their home game against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Jaipur on Sunday, they had the buffer of an excellent net run-rate to fall back on. But after a crushing 112-run defeat, that too has gone. A whole host of other results will have to go their way for Rajasthan to progress. And given their recent form, there’s no guarantee that they will beat a Punjab side with play-off ambitions of their own.
How did it come to this, especially when the numbers suggest that Rajasthan should be far higher up the table? Jaiswal trails only Faf du Plessis in the race for the Orange cap, while Buttler and Samson are also in the list of top-20 run-scorers. The Royals have four bowlers with 10 or more wickets, each of them with an economy rate under 8.50. Why then have they lost six of their last eight matches?
A little digging unearths some uncomfortable figures. Either side of a thrilling 95 against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Buttler has made 53 runs in six innings. Alongside four half-centuries, he also has four ducks for the season. Samson has two. Shimron Hetmyer ambushed Gujarat in Ahmedabad with a marvellous unbeaten 26-ball 56. In his next five innings, he made 28.
Ashwin has taken one wicket in four outings in May. Outside of a superb spell of 4-29 against Sunrisers, Chahal took one wicket in four matches at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium.
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Seasons can also change in an over or two. After a morale-boosting thrashing of Chennai on home turf in Jaipur, Rajasthan went to Mumbai and piled up an imposing 212 at the Wankhede Stadium. Jaiswal’s glorious 124 was one of the finest innings played in the league’s history, and though Suryakumar Yadav played the sort of innovative blinder he’s famed for, the game was very much in Rajasthan’s grasp.
When SKY was dismissed, Mumbai still needed 61 from 26 balls. No matter how batting-friendly the conditions, that’s no cakewalk. But with Jason Holder dishing out hit-me balls, and Tim David dealing almost solely in sixes, Mumbai romped home with three balls to spare.
Two games later, they set Sunrisers 215 to win on their home patch in Jaipur. The Hyderabad batters tilted bravely at windmills, but when the dangerous trio of Heinrich Klaasen, Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram were dismissed in the space of 13 balls, they needed 41 from 13 balls. That they were still notionally in the game had a lot to do with some mystifying decisions on Rajasthan’s part.
Murugan Ashwin, the leg-spinner playing his first game in Jaipur, went for 42 from three overs. Obed McCoy, the West Indian left-arm quick who hadn’t played all season, was brought in as an impact sub just to bowl at the death. His only over cost 13. Yet, the game was in the Royals’ grasp.
The inexperienced Kuldip Yadav had shared the new ball and gone for 26 in his first three overs. Entrusted with the penultimate over, he saw Glenn Phillips deposit two full tosses and a slower ball over the rope. But despite him conceding 24, Sunrisers needed 17 from the final six deliveries.
No matter how good a bowler you are, and Sandeep has built quite a reputation for his composure and yorkers at the death, it’s a nerve-wracking challenge. It didn’t help when Abdul Samad, who hadn’t opened his account, was dropped by McCoy at short third man off the first ball of the over. The next went for six over Sandeep’s head. But he didn’t panic, and the next three balls saw just four scored.
Final ball. Five to win, four to take it to a Super Over. Sandeep went full, Samad swung, and the drilled shot was taken at long-off. Sandeep raised a celebratory finger to the sky. And then the klaxon went off. He hadn’t just overstepped. His foot was over by the proverbial mile, the kind of lapse that would have made a disciplinarian coach make him run rounds of the oval till the next sunrise.
Forced to trudge back to his mark, Sandeep went for the wide yorker. He didn’t miss by much, but Samad was in great position to thump it right back down the ground. The flattest of sixes, and a famous victory.
Hard-luck stories don’t win trophies. And great teams usually make their own luck. They don’t drop crucial catches or fluff run-outs, and they certainly don’t overstep with the game on the line. Rajasthan are where they are for a reason. They may yet sneak into the playoffs, unlikely though that is. But at the end of a campaign that promised so much and has ultimately delivered so little, tough questions need to be asked.
After having spent more than half a billion pounds in the transfer market since last July, Chelsea sit in 11th place in football’s English Premier League, a staggering 42 points behind Manchester City, the champions-elect. A squad full of stars, a merry-go-round of coaches and no coherent playing philosophy.
Rajasthan aren’t in quite as much of a mess, but someone in authority will have to explain to the legion of disappointed fans just why a team that appeared to have every base covered finished so far off the pace.