IPL 2020: We aren't playing good enough over the 40 overs- Steve Smith

IPL 2020 | DC vs RR: 3 Reasons Why Delhi shrug off Rajasthan to reach top of the table

Team to beat in this tournament, Delhi Capitals maintained their dominance in the Indian Premier League defeating Rajasthan Royals by 46 runs in the 23rd match of the cash-rich league. Playing at the high scoring venue of Sharjah, Rajasthan Royals capitulated once again and failed to chase down a 185-run target set by Shreyas Iyer and his men. The top order heavy team were sent packing by the halfway point of the chase with their top three batsmen in Jos Buttler, Steve Smith and Sanju Samson failing to grab any ground. With the batting stalwarts out of the equation, Rajasthan never had enough firepower in their middle order to stage a comeback against a staunch Delhi bowling and at the end of the day lost the game by a big margin of 46 runs. On that note, here are the three reasons why Delhi Capitals breezed past Rajasthan Royals to move to the top of the table. Shimron Hetmyer Sent to bat in the first innings after losing the toss, despite scoring at a healthy rate, Delhi Capitals were struggling for momentum at the halfway stage, losing their entire top order, courtesy some awful running between the wickets. When Hetmyer walked into the crease, Delhi had just lost Rishabh Pant in a horrendous mix-up with Marcus Stoinis and were reeling at 79/4 in 9.2 overs. Like most successful batsmen have done in this tournament, Hetmyer too took some time to settle in nodding around the first 10 odd balls. He then constructed a crucial partnership along with Marcus Stoinis to put Delhi at a place where the bowlers had something to defend in this ground. Before he finally got out to Kartik Tyagi trying to hit him for the third consecutive six in the 17th over, Hetmyer had scored 45 off 23 balls. Returning to field later, he took two stunning catches in the boundary line to affect dismissals of Steve Smith and Shreyas Gopal. Rajasthan order top order The Rajasthan Royals top order have been in shambles for almost the entire duration of the tournament. After losing their last game against Mumbai by 59 runs, Steve Smith had said that they understand the issues and would look to gain some momentum before Ben Stokes comes into the squad. The top order has consistently failed to show up and provide Royals with the momentum they need in this tournament. But to no avail, Rajasthan scripted the same narrative once again. On the night, mainstays Steve Smith and Sanju Samson threw away their wickets when Rajasthan needed them to see the innings through and young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal barely looked comfortable during his stay at the crease. Rajasthan would really hope that either the law of averages catches up to them, or Ben Stokes singlehandedly manages to change the fortunes of this franchise. Delhi hunt in pack A target of 185 is not something that any team is unfamiliar or uncomfortable with at the Sharjah Stadium. For that matter, it was Rahul Tewatia of Rajasthan Royals who carved an incredible IPL story in this ground chasing down an impossible target 224 runs against the Kings XI Punjab on the 27th of last month. But comeback stories are not made every day. Losing their best batsmen within the first 10 overs meant that Rajasthan had a nearly impossible task ahead of them against a team that bowled and fielded well on an everyday basis. Barring Axar Patel who bowled just 2 overs for 8 runs everyone else was amongst wickets tonight. The bowling unit frustrated the batsmen and squeezed soft dismissals out of them with Rabada being the pick of the bowlers notching up 3 wickets. However, Ravichandran Ashwin was awarded the man of the match trophy on the night for his fantastic spell of 2/22 in four overs where he picked two crucial wickets of Jos Buttler and Mahipal Lomror. For Rajasthan Royals, it is now a tournament of survival. Most teams know their chinks in the armour and have exploited the same to win against them by huge margins in the last four games. With games coming thick and fast, Rajasthan need to turn their campaign around against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have not really settled in the tournament as well. They play their next game on Sunday, 11 October and have barely any time for recovery before the doubleheader. Some might pray that the law of averages catches up to them and the team sees a turnaround in their fortunes, but at the current state, no amount of luck can help the team if they consistently keep underperforming in the tournament.

IPL 2020 | DC vs RR: Stoinis, Ashwin hoist Delhi to table-crowning victory

Brief Scores: Delhi Capitals 184/8 in 20 overs (Shimron Hetmyer 45, Marcus Stoinis 39; Jofra Archer 3/24) beat Rajasthan Royals 138/10 in 20 overs (Rahul Tewatia 38, Yashasvi Jaiswal 34; Kagiso Rabada 3/35) by 46 runs. Delhi Capitals' well-oiled mechanisms functioned at optimal capacity to hand Rajasthan Royals their fourth straight defeat in the 23rd match of the Indian Premier League 2020. In pursuit of an attainable 185, RR endured the strain of a misfiring top-order to go down by a bumper 46 runs in a snoozefest on Friday, October 9 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Ravichandran Ashwin was deservedly awarded the Man-of-the-Match for his game-changing spell of 2/22. Besides churning a valuable 35, Marcus Stoinis sneaked away with figures of 17/2 in his two overs to plot RR's demise in emphatic fashion. Lazy RR find themselves in a pickle Chasing anything below 200 at Sharjah is not a tough grind by any stretch of the imagination. But the boxes need to be ticked nonetheless. RR's inauguration was the polar opposite of what they'd have aspired for. Jos Buttler fell prey to a smart grab by Shikhar Dhawan as he chose the wrong ball to hoick off Ravichandran Ashwin. Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and one down Steve Smith consumed an alarming number of deliveries with the scoreboard pressure breathing down their neck. Scuffling to keep his head above water, Smith managed to time a flick right out of the screws only to witness Shimron Hetmyer belly flop to grasp a blinder zipping in from deep mid-wicket. Agile as a rabbit, DC complete formalities The lucky ground puffery was rubbished as nonsense with Sanju Samson crumbling to his fourth successive single-digit score, his toe-edged swat registering more elevation than distance. Mahipal Lomror parcelled a dolly to catching cover off Ashwin before Jaiswal had his stumps tinkled by Stoinis' off-cutter, leaving RR in a rabbit hole of despair at 82/5. Fortune was clearly favouring the brave as an off-guard Kagiso Rabada recovered stunningly to lay hold of Andrey Tye's vigorous jab at mid-wicket. Jofra Archer couldn't script a last-ditch miracle either, with Shreyas Iyer jogging backwards to pouch his benign golf-swing. Rahul Tewatia middled a few out of the park to bring about a nostalgia kick from THAT Sharjah heist, but 78 off 24 balls was just a heck of a lot of trash to clean for the pocket-sized dynamite. Hetmyer bettered his previous screamer by lifting from inches off the turf Shreyas Gopal's square-cut before Rabada had Tewatia chopping on for 38 to hammer the final nail in RR's coffin. Rajasthan on an absolute roll Banking upon the tried and tested doctrine of chasing at Sharjah, Steve Smith invited DC to have a crack. Although not without a couple of stopgaps in the playing eleven. Andrew Tye and Varun Aaron registered their season debuts as Tom Curran and Ankit Rajpoot made way. Safe to say, the skipper had hit the nail on the head as RR drew early blood. Jofra Archer proved the undoing of Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw, who'd already enjoyed a slice of luck earlier as Kartik Tyagi misjudged a skier charging in from fine-leg. Livewire Yashasvi Jaiswal then rubbed salt into DC's wounds, leaping across to intercept Shreyas Iyer's drive before clattering the stumps direct with a rifle-like throw to nab him a country- mile short. Pant harakiri symptomatic of DC's plight Marcus Stoinis extinguished the flames to a certain degree, picking the length and rocking onto the back-foot to tramp consecutive maximums over cow corner off Shreyas Gopal. However, no words can justify the split second of absurdity that transpired next. Stoinis knocked one to the left of mid-wicket and took a default prod in an approach to sneak a single, albeit non-striker Rishabh Pant was on a different planet altogether. He didn't bat an eye at the field, couldn't care less about his partner's consent and rushed blindly towards the striker's end as a loopy underarm pass sealed his fate. Axar-Harshal flex their muscles after Hetmyer blaze Stoinis and Shimron Hetmyer joined forces to keep the engine pumping for a brief while till a languid flash of the blade off Rahul Tewatia spelt the former's doom at 39. The left-handed typhoon mashed Tyagi for two jumbo sixes to raze his economy, but the young quick was rewarded for his otherwise nifty exploits as long-on cupped Hetmyer's tonk for a spirited 45. Late cameos from Axar Patel and Harshal Patel were worth their weight in gold, rafting the pink jerseys to a par score of 184/8, which seemed a dicey proposition at first but turned out to be more than enough in the grander scheme of things. What's next in store? Down in the mouth, Rajasthan Royals will pray for an elusive victory in the first of Sunday's doubleheader against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday, October 11. Fireworks are expected later in the evening as Mumbai Indians tackle the rampaging bandwagon of Delhi Capitals.

IPL 2020 | DC vs RR: What experts said as Hetmyer helps Delhi humble Steve Smith’s Royals

It was the first time that a game at Sharjah saw no team crossing the 200-mark in this year’s IPL, as Delhi Capital defeated Rajasthan Royals by 46 runs in what could be the ‘nth one-sided affair in the IPL. This year, although we have had two super overs but only a few of the 23 games completed have been good enough to say that they were exciting, the rest all have done and dusted by the time death overs arrive in the second innings. And this is w2orrying signs for the league. But what’s refreshing is the way the Delhi side batted, like a champion indeed. Having lost five wickets for just 109 with their star performers so far, Prithvi Shaw, Marcus Stoinis, and Shreyas Iyer back in the hit, things weren’t looking bright for the Capitals till they found their new heroin Shimron Hetmyer. The West Indian shaped the inning as he combined with both Stoinis for the fifth wicket and Axar Patel for the si8xth wicket, making 45 off just 24 balls, giving his team the boost in the run rate and increase in the runs that they required. His innings had five maximums and just one four. In the bowling department, Ravichandran Ashwin was the card of ‘Ace’ for the Capitals as he not only picked up two wickets but gave away just 22 runs in his quota of four overs and he did it in ‘Sharjah’. Captains’ Viewpoint Overwhelmed by the win, Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer said, “I'm really happy with the way we came out in the second innings.” Explaining how the pitch at Sharjah has changed over the course of time, Iyer said, “We thought it was an under-par score but it was stopping on the wicket and the bowlers executed their plans really well. We were also going to bowl first with the dew factor, but thankfully it went in our favour.” Praising his teammates, the 25-year-old said that it was easy to captain a team with so many stars in that, especially mentioning the pool of good bowlers. “I am enjoying captaincy because the players make it really easy, especially the bowlers. Even the way the support staff is managing the team meetings is commendable.” “I think the mixture in our team is really good and we have worked really hard on this,” he added. Stretching in the point that no opposition is to be taken lightly, Iyer concluded by saying that he was ‘happy’ with how they are progressing and hopes ‘to maintain the momentum’ going forward in the league. It was a sorry state of affairs for Rajasthan and captain Steve Smith could do nothing but lament on the lost opportunities. “We are not playing good enough over the 40 overs,” he admitted at the very beginning of the post-match presentation interaction. He further said that his team is not ‘executing when the pressure is coming on’. “You can't win many games that way,” he added. Agreeing to his counterpart Iyer, Smith too echoed the sentiments that the Sharjah pitch is changing. “The bowlers did a good job, and I don't think the wicket was as good as it has been here, a bit stoppy tonight, and we gave away 10-15 extra runs,” he said. The fact that the team has only gone downhill ever since getting out of Sharjah after their second match, the pressure is obvious to creep in. But Smith says that all is not yet lost and wanted the team to remain positive. “We have to remain positive, turn things around quickly. At the moment it doesn't seem to be going our way,” he said. “I'm not batting too well either. I did feel good tonight with the bat but didn't get hold of one that I feel like I should have,” the 33-year-old said, admitting his mistakes and the dip in form. The talk of Ben Stokes coming back into the side was once gain in main focus as Smith clarified that his quarantine would end tomorrow (10th October) and hence the guarantee of him playing in the Sunday encounter could not be taken. “Stokes hasn't had a lot of practice, he gets out of quarantine tomorrow, so we'll see if he plays the day after tomorrow,” Smith concluded. Expert Opinion The story of Rajasthan is following the same trajectory as Kings XI Punjab and it would be very hard to come back from there for the Royals. Experts too believe this. Boria Majumdar, a senior cricket expert said that Delhi Capitals is probably playing the tournament with their best-ever team and hence must make it, otherwise, they would have to repent. Along with Boria, Harsha Bhogle, another top cricket commentator said that Rajasthan need to buck up otherwise they would end up being another Kings XI Punjab. The commentator was also sad by the falling standards of cricket in IPL and said that one-sided matches are not good for the league's growth. Veteran cricket journalist, Ayaz Memon was happy with the fact that Ravichandran Ashwin was given the Man of the Match award in this game, Ashwin did not bat but made vital contributions with the ball, with figures of 4/33 in his entire quote. While few of the experts were still discussing the minute details of the game, senior journalist Vimal Kumar commented that Delhi Capitals seem to have put one foot in the Playoffs and now it would be a challenge for other teams to dethrone it from the top spot in IPL. For Vikrant Gupta, another broadcast journalist for cricket, Rajasthan lost a vital opportunity to make a comeback in the league after not being able to win this game. The Pitches in UAE are coming in their original avatar as 'low and slow' have been their motto for quite some time. With Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings, and Kings XI Punjab lagging behind, hopefully, the weekends would be better and the audience might finally be able to see some exciting games.

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 having great games 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 exploit 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 lineup 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 fout 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.