Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson expressed disappointment after his side lost against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 clash on Tuesday. Brilliant display of batting by Dinesh Karthik and Shahbaz Ahmed helped Royal Challengers Bangalore in defeating Rajasthan Royals by four wickets, at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Tuesday.
"I can't point out one moment where we lost the game. I thought it was a great effort to put up that total on such a slow wicket after losing the toss. Jos and Hetmyer batted brilliantly at the death. Taking the match to the last over with the dew coming in was a great effort as well," said Sanju Samson in a post-match presentation.
"(On whether he asked the umpires to change the ball because of dew) No I didn't, I was confident about my bowlers. DK is someone with a lot of experience. We just need to take our time to set the field. Lot of positives to take out of this loss, and we can learn a lot of things as well," he added.
Chasing 170, RCB had a decent start with openers Faf du Plessis and Anuj Rawat stitching a 50-run partnership in 6 overs. They finally faced a blow when Yuzvendra Chahal dismissed du Plessis in the 7th over with the team's total at 55/1.
Rawat followed the footsteps of du Plessis and departed in the very next over after getting caught by Sanju Samson on Navdeep Saini's delivery with only 61 runs on the board.
RCB had their worst time during the 9th over as they lost back to back wickets of Virat Kohli, who got run out, and David Willey, who was bowled out by Chahal and left the team's total at 62/4.
Sherfane Rutherford and Shahbaz Ahmed came to the crease and tried to anchor the innings for some time. Rutherford then got caught by Navdeep Saini in the 13th over, with 87 runs and wickets on the board.
Shahbaz was then joined by Dinesh Karthik and the duo brought RCB back onto the track. They thrashed the RR bowlers and made a quick 50-run partnership.
With just 28 runs left to win from 18 balls, Shahbaz scored 13 runs before getting bowled out by Trent Boult, after playing changing knock of 45 runs off 26 deliveries. Karthik, who was then joined by Harshal Patel, made sure to complete the pending task of bringing RCB home.
Karthik smashed 12 runs in the 19th over and left only 3 runs to be scored in the final over. Harshal Patel, who was standing on the other end, also contributed with a six on the very first delivery of the 20th over and clinched the victory by four wickets.