IPL 2020 | DC vs RR: Hits and Flops as even Sharjah couldn't end Royals' misery

The return of action to Sharjah did little to the fortunes of Rajasthan Royals as they again failed to rise to the challenges presented by the Delhi Capitals that showed the strength of its multifaceted squad. The top order failed and the middle too, could not do what they have been doing in the last few matches. But, when the pressure was on and the team needed a new hero, Shimron Hetmyer put his hands up to show why he is such a highly-rated cricket in the world cricket and the Delhi camp.

Here we pick the players who left their marks on the game with their brilliance either with the bat or ball in helping their team in winning or sliding down.

Hits

Jofra Archer

The Jofra Archer the world is so fascinated about finally arrived in IPL 2020 against Delhi’s top-order batsmen. He has not had a bad IPL so far but the fact that he has not been able to win the Royals some games on his one makes this season a middling one for someone like Archer.

Archer was not brilliant to start with and was hit for a four by Prithvi Shaw, although the delivery was not a particularly bad one. Luck turned around for him as delivery on the leg stump handed him his first wicket of the power play in the second over of the game in form of Shikhar Dhawan who chipped the ball straight to Yashasvi Jaiswal at short midwicket.

Archer came back against Shaw in the power play and had the last laugh against Shaw who was beaten in length as he shaped up to pull. The length was too full for a pull shot and the pace of Archer found him late on the pull and the top edge was taken cleanly by Archer himself in the follow-through.

Archer ended with the figure of 24/3 from his four overs and although the Royals lost all the advantage they had by leaking too many in the end overs, Archer’s spell would give Steve Smith a glimmer of hope going ahead.

Shimron Hetmyer

Hetmyer had made the worst possible start to the IPL 2020 and he was made to look like an average batsman by Mohammed Shami in the Delhi’s first game against the Kings XI Punjab. Hetmyer was due for a big and decisive knock and also under immense pressure as there were talks about Sandeep Lamichhane deserving a place in the XI especially after Amit Mishra’s injury. But, Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting decided to put all their weight behind him and backed him to come good.

To be fair to Hetmyer, the Delhi’s top order was in top form in the last few matches and he was left to bat for only a few balls where he had little option of choosing his shots wisely. Failure of top order against the Royals provided Hetmyer with a perfect opportunity to announce his arrival and he did exactly that in a much grander fashion. 

It was Hetmyer’s exploits which kept Delhi in the game while wickets were falling at other end and by the time he was dismissed on the last ball of the 17th over after a 24-ball-45, he had dented Royals’ chances of limiting the Delhi’s line-up to a modest total.

Shimron Hetmyer is a complete package and it was all going for him, he was not to be missing out on making his name as a superb outfielder. Diving forward to catch the ball in the outfield has always been difficult but Hetmyer did it without any fuss, not once, but twice and got the back of Steve Smith and Shreyas Gopal.

Marcus Stoinis

Marcus Stoinis has been the linchpin of Delhi Capitals’ success in this season. The Aussie all-rounder has been at the top of his game whenever the team needed him to come good. He started to be the X-factor for the Shreyas Iyer’s side since the first game of the season and it seems his form has not vanished until now.

He was in beast mode from the outset and dispatched Shreyas Gopal for two back-to-back sixes on the fourth and fifth ball he faced. He made his intentions look clear from the time he started the onslaught against Gopal. He hit two more sixes of Gopal and Tewatia before Tewatia got the better of him, after all, it was Sharjah where the teams were playing.

If his attack with the bat was not enough, he hurt the Royals more with the ball in hand. He dismissed Sanju Samson who looked out of touch after two surreal innings and also got the better of the young Yashasvi Jaiswal just when he started to flourish after a sluggish inning of 34 from 36 balls. 

Marcus Stoinis was bought in the auction before the IPL this year and he will be one of the best decisions the Delhi Capitals management has made in the last few years while building the team under the leadership of Shreyas Iyer.

Flops

Steve Smith

It’s not rare for a star captain of an IPL team to see things go out of control so badly (ask Virat Kohli), but the fact that the things are not looking great for Steve Smith, the batsman is a bigger worry both for him and the Royals team. The best thing about Smith’s batting is that when he is at the crease, things are never out of his hands and he never looks puzzled about whatever might be happening on the field. But for the Royals, in this season after those honeymoon matches in Sharjah, things have turned around for worse as the team is now slipping down on the points table.

In the contest against the Delhi Capitals, while he allowed the game to drift away from Royals even after getting the top order cheaply, he could not convert a good start into a match-winning one for the team. He starred briskly hitting 24 off 17 balls before Shimron Hetmyer’s brilliance cut short his journey and his wicket sent a certain sense of disbelief into the RR camp from which they could not recover and almost surrendered in the end.

The Royals need Smith to come good both as the captain of the side and the batsman as the batting order revolves around him with Buttler being asked to take the attack to the opposition bowling line ups. His repeated failures, added with Sanju Samson’s dip in form have culminated in the Royals’ losing streak.

Sanju Samson

When Sanju Samson was hitting bowers over the boundary line for fun in the first two matches of the Rajasthan Royals, there was always a big question on the sustainability of the form. Samson has not been known for his consistency and there was a big question on whether he will be able to sustain his form for a bit longer period of time. There is little doubt his talent and skills to beat the best in the world but a tally of 176 runs from six matches this season so far has reaffirmed the points critics make about him.

Sanju Samson has been touted as one of the best things that the IPL has produced but it’s high time for him to put his head down and make one complete season his own and pile up the scores in excess of 600 runs to knock the Indian team’s door really hard.

He disappointed yet again against Delhi Capitals when the team was in dire need of him scoring runs to chase a middling score as per Sharjah’s standard. He walked out to bat in the ninth over when Smith got dismissed and the responsibility was doubled on him after the loss of Buttler and Smith but Samson could not regain his old Sharjan touch and was holed out at the long-on boundary of Stoinis.

It is now evident that the strategies the Royals are adopting are not working and the teams that dominated the early phase of the IPL 2020 are now finding themselves at the bottom of the table. There is a lot to happen in the tournament but for that to happen for the Royals' good they need to regroup and ask themselves some tough tough questions about different facets of the games they have lost.

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