Rajasthan Royals had a forgettable night on Friday as they faced a big nine-wicket defeat in a low-scoring encounter against Gujarat Titans. Playing at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur, RR were bundled out for 118, after Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad took three and two wickets respectively. Later, GT chased down the target in just 13.5 over with nine wickets in hand. After their loss, RR players had to face the wrath of their head coach Kumar Sangakkara as he did not mince his words while criticising them.
Addressing the team in the dressing room, Sangakkara termed the defeat as “embarrassing” and stated that the players need to accept their loss and work harder for the upcoming game against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
“I know everyone's hurting. The reality of it is, we played a pi**-poor game. The shi**iest cricket that we can play, and we did that. Alright?. Thinking about what happened today… the only thing you want to do is learn from it. It was embarassing. What the fans are going to think, what the points table is showing… it doesn't change the quality of our side just because we played an absolutely poor game," said Sangakkara in a video posted on RR's Twitter.
"Accept it first. You want to learn, you have to accept that you weren't good enough. Gujarat outplayed us, but that's only this day. We have one day to recover, we can keep talking about mistakes we can learn from," he added.
New Zealand bowler Trent Boult (15) was Rajasthan's second-highest scorer before he was dismissed by Mohammed Shami. India's Shami and Ireland's Josh Little took two wickets in eight tight overs between them.
Gujarat opener Shubman Gill (36) was removed by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal in the 10th over before skipper Hardik Pandya hit an explosive 15-ball 39 not out with three sixes to wrap the game up in the 14th over. Opener Wriddhiman Saha was also unbeaten on 41.
The win put reigning IPL champions Gujarat Titans three points ahead at the top of the table after 10 games.
With AFP inputs