Rajasthan Royals batting collapsed once again to go down against Delhi Capitals at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Steve Smith & Co finished 13 runs short to remain with six points from eight matches.

Chasing 162 runs, Rajasthan opener Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler got off to a flying start. They took on the new ball bowlers – Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje, who have done exceedingly well so far in the competition in the UAE. But Nortje, who delivered the fastest ball in IPL, bounced back soon to draw the first blood while Ravichandran Ashwin sent back Steve Smith.

Rajasthan Royals drop points against Delhi

Sanju Samson and Robin Uthappa tried their best in the middle overs but they failed to play long knocks which summed up Rajasthan Royals future in this game. The untimely runout of Riyan Parag added more agony as they fell 13 runs short to register their second defeat against Delhi Capitals in IPL 2020.

Earlier in the day, Rajasthan Royals started well and ended well but it was not enough to secure them a win. Jofra Archer was at the helm of it all. He sent back Prithvi Shaw with an absolute jaffa off the first ball of the game and then hurried Ajinkya Rahane into a miscued pull.

Shikhar Dhawan and Shreyas Iyer steadied the innings with the former counterattacking. The southpaw recorded his second fifty of the season and laid the foundation for the big score. Jofra Archer and Kartik Tyagi then executed their death bowling plans to perfection and didn’t allow the likes of Stoinis and Carey to run away with the game.

The wicket got slower in the end – Steve Smith

But it was not enough to secure them a win as the batters failed to back their bowlers. Speaking at the end of the game, Steve Smith stated that the wicket got slower with the game which made it difficult for the batters. He also added that the batsmen failed to finish the game where they need to work hard.

“Disappointing. The wicket slowed up a bit as the game went on. We got off to a good start with Jos and Stokesy, then we lost a couple wickets and got another partnership between Stokesy and Sanju, then again lost wickets in clumps and on slow wickets it is hard to make up too many runs at the backend.

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We needed to take it a bit deeper from some of our batters and we were not able to do that,” Steve Smith said.