IPL 2021 | RR vs SRH - What Experts Said as Jason Roy storm hits Rajasthan

Sunrisers Hyderabad picked up an unlikely victory against the top-4 contenders Rajasthan Royals after SRH debutant Jason Roy smashed the Rajasthan attack all over the park. The Englishman hit a 60 ball 42 helping SRH chase down 164 runs in 18.3 overs, their highest runs while batting second this season. 
Batting with captain Kane Williamson who anchored the innings till the end, Roy launched an all-out attack, something that the SRH have been wanting desperately from their openers throughout the season.

Things got a little tricky after the aggressive right-hander was dismissed in the final ball of the 12th over, but the calm of Kane Williamson shouldered the franchise to only their second victory this season.

Earlier in the innings, Rajasthan were off to an awful start early in the innings, losing Evin Lewis in a wicket maiden that was smartly worked by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The deep fine leg was set for Evin Lewis’ pick up glance off the good length ball, and he got trapped off the same shot in the second over.

Sanju Samson though played a breathtaking innings, first anchoring the innings in the early phase of the game and then putting pedal to the metal after playing 30 balls. He notched up yet another big score in this season and finished at 82 off just 57 balls. In the process, he has now become the orange cap holder as well.

While Sanju and Mahipal Lomror kept scoring throughout the middle phases, it was the trifecta of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jason Holder and Siddharth Kaul made an incredible comeback to check the flow of runs in the final three.

Rajasthan, who were scoring at 10 RPO, were able to just score 21 runs from 18 balls losing two wickets in that phase.

Jason Roy for obvious reasons won the man of the match award.

On that note, here are the Exerperts’ opinions from the game.

Captain’s viewpoint

Speaking after the game, Kane Williamson look relieved after having broken the 5-game losing streak. He spoke about how the group could build on this win and put their best foot forward in the remaining games.

“Yeah its a good feeling. It was a much-improved performance. There was a clarity in the roles and it is nice to be on the right side after a long time. Hopefully as a group we could build on that and we have a few games to see that. Really critical, couple of players who played there which was significant. Sanju batted brilliantly but we closed out very well that gave us a chance. The start was brilliant for us. We tried to weather the storm in the middle and take it deep.” 

He further talked about Jason Roy and the injection of energy that he brought in the playing XI and that SRH will try to improve throughout the remainder of the tournament.

“Look Jason is an injection of energy any team he plays for. He has been in the sideline for a long time but whenever he gets his chance he puts his foot forward. Look we have got a couple of days left before the next game. CSK comes next, top of the table. We have to worry about our cricket and try and improving throughout the backend of the tournament.”

Opposition captain Sanju Samson said that they were short on runs and that the team needs to work on both departments given the margin of error is so less in the format.

"Actually I think it was a decent score. The wicket was a bit sticky bounce. We could have got 10 or 20 runs more. Yeah you can say that. But the start which we got in the sticky wicket. I wanted to kept on going after the powerplay but we kept losing wickets so I wanted to stay deep and put up a respectable total. The wicket got better and they played very well. We have to work on both our batting and bowling and execute the plans better. The margin of error is so less in this format."

Experts’ Opinions

Right from the start, experts spotted the change of approach and style in Samson’s batting and talked about how this could be his best rendition yet.

He started by anchoring the innings when wickets were falling and then took the attack to the opposition. He was striking at 107 SR from his first 30 balls and clocked 143.86 when he got out in the 20th over.

Talks about his consistency were also put to rest (at least for now) and this would boost the Rajasthan camp’s confidence in their captain right ahead of the mega auction next season.

The run of form would also be interesting from Indian context given how woefully Ishan Kishan has faltered in the UAE leg of the IPL. 

One of the features for today’s innings was how the Rajasthan batsmen were able to pull up their run-rate through the middle overs, something that has not been a feature of their game. Analysts looked at the same and praised the likes of Jaiswal who departed while looking for the big shot and trying to show good intent through a stuck phase of play.

There was good reason for Rajasthan flying through the scoreboard because of some decent bowling from the SRH bowlers. While they did not squeeze out the line up, SRH did not let Rajasthan go over 7.5 RPO for most of the powerplay. 

If they would not have dropped the catch of Yashasvi Jaiswal, SRH could probably have done much better in the early phases.

However, this did not stop Sandeep Sharma from becoming the joint highest wicket-taker in the powerplay phase and now he is tied with Zaheer Khan in that record.

One of the interesting assessments tonight was the ‘Curious Case of Liam Livingstone’. After playing some magnificent cricket throughout the last year, Livingstone was supposed to light the IPL on fire in the second phase of the tournament. 

However, that hasn’t quite worked out well for the Jaipur based franchise.

Amassing a total of just 30 runs from 3 games, Livingstone has found difficult to get a move on.

Even today, while trying to clear a long-hop off Rashid Khan, he put up a simple catch in the hands of the deep midwicket fielder. Any other day, that would have been an assured 95m six from the English player who has been in the form of his life.

Ben Jones of Cricviz pointed out that Livingstone has not quite teed off in the tournament before explaining why he went for that shot.

Rashid vs Livingstone - In stats before this match

However renowned English analyst Kieran pointed out that there might have been a logical flaw in Livingstone’s plan despite his record accumulations against Rashid Khan. 

Last but not the least it was obviously the night of Jason Roy who scored an incredible half century on debut. He took the attack to the opposition and reminded the fans of what they were missing the top of the batting order. 

CricViz put the effort in numbers and explained how SRH's intent in the middle overs did not let the game slip and how it helped them to win the game. With this win, SRH have upset the entire table of the Indian Premier League and now mathematically, still remain in contention to the playoffs spot. 

If they win their last three games and KKR, MI, RCB, PBKS and RR win just one of theirs, SRH can still make it to the points with 12 points to their name, something that did happen in 2019.