Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen has suggested one way to revive Rajasthan Royals’ struggling form in IPL 2021. The Royals toil at the end of the points table with only one win from four matches and losing three on the trot. Their latest defeat came against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
177 – set by Rajasthan Royals was always below-par but nobody expected the Bangalore openers to make such a mockery of the total. Padikkal’s strokeplay was dazzling from the word go, allowing Virat Kohli to settle and the latter also hit top gear later on in the innings. It was the young left-hander’s game though, and he fittingly produced a superb ton. Kohli too got a form-inducing half-century to be the first cricketer to score 6000 IPL runs and the target was chased down with 21 balls left without a single wicket lost.
Devdutt Padikkal was excellent bringing his first century of IPL remaining unbeaten on 102 runs. He paced his innings with six towering sixes as he toiled with the Rajasthan Royals bowling attack. Sanju Samson tried everything at his disposal but couldn’t manage to find a breakthrough.
Trading inside bubble can help Rajasthan Royals – Kevin Pietersen
Meanwhile, Rajasthan have been marred with injury issues even before the tournament started. England cricketer Jofra Archer, their premier pacer, isn’t a part of the league with a hand injury. Ben Stokes developed a finger injury in their season opener and thus will miss the remainder of the tournament. In another telling blow, Liam Livingstone also pulled out of the tournament, citing, ‘bubble fatigue’.
Bearing in mind that the Royals’ lost quite a few of their players, Kevin Pietersen reckoned that ‘trading inside the bubble’ can help the team recover to some extent.
“Do you think trading inside team bubbles should be allowed this @IPL season? A team like RR desperately need overseas players,” Kevin Pietersen wrote on Twitter.
Do you think trading inside team bubbles should be allowed this @IPL season?
A team like RR desperately need overseas players.— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) April 22, 2021
