Rajasthan Royals' head coach Andrew McDonald was disappointed with his team’s unexpected below-par performance in a much-needed IPL 2020 clash against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Dubai International Stadium on Sunday (November 1).
In the 54th game of the IPL 2020, Royals got off a great start with Jofra Archer dismissing KKR’s key opener Nitish Rana in the first over, but couldn’t find any solution against Eoin Morgan as his unbeaten 68 off 35 balls took Riders to the big total of 191/7 in Dubai.
Chasing the total, RR’s top-order badly failed to deliver with Pat Cummins scalped four wickets conceding just 34 runs in his four overs as the Royals could manage only 131 with Jos Buttler was top-scorer (35) for the franchise against the KKR on Sunday.
Following the defeat, McDonald has described RR’s show against KKR as “below-par performance” saying the Royals never really gave themselves a chance to build a foundation while chasing 192.
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He further pointed out that Cummins' spell had put RR on the backfoot at the start of the game but felt the total was chaseable but the Royals “never really got rolling” against KKR in Dubai as RR finished another IPL season without qualifying for the playoffs.
McDonald said in the post-match press conference, “It was below-par performance and below what we'd expect. In the last couple of games, we've chased down big totals and today we never really got rolling. To lose five wickets in the powerplay generally puts you on the backfoot. We never really gave ourselves a chance to build a foundation and chase down the total.”
The coach further explained, “Pat Cummins's first over was interesting - 19 runs with a wicket. And then he got another couple of wickets on the back of that. We can't pinpoint an exact reason. We thought we had the best of conditions in terms of the dew. We thought we gave ourselves a good start and it was a total we should have chased.”
He further reasoned RR’s inconsistent in the IPL 2020 behind the team’s failure to qualify for the IPL 13 playoffs in the UAE.
The coach further noted, “Some of the cricket we played throughout the tournament was inconsistent. There were a couple where we could have clearly won. Looking back at the RCB game, AB took that game away. Against Delhi also, we weren't able to chase it down.”
McDonald signed off by saying, “We can't really blame the conditions or the venues, we played inconsistent cricket. We won two games in a row and then a few inconsistencies crept in and we couldn't complete the job today.”
(With ANI Inputs)
