Sanju Samson urges players to show some more grit
The captain of the Rajasthan Royals, Sanju Samson, asked his players to pull up their socks after RR suffered a crushing defeat by nine wickets against the defending champions Gujarat Giants on Friday, May 5, in Jaipur. in match 48 of the ongoing IPL 2023, the hosts won the toss and elected to bat first. However, the decision backfired as Jos Buttler fell cheaply and then they lost the in-form opener, Yashasvi Jaiswal via a runout. Post that the home side could not recover and kept losing wickets at regular intervals. In fact, their middle order collapsed like a pack of cards.
Speaking of GT, the Afghan duo of Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad had other plans as per gave away just 39 runs in seven overs and shared five crucial wickets between them. Consequently, RR got bundled out for a below-par total of 118. Moreover, the home side failed to play their allotted 20 overs.
In reply, GT chased down the target in a rather dominating fashion as they completed their run chase in just 13.5 overs with nine wickets in hand. As a result, post the match, the RR skipper Sanju Samson seemed unhappy with the performances of his players.
“We had a very tough night, didn’t really have a good powerplay to start with and struggled against the spinners. We have to check our to-do list and see if we are actually playing good cricket, we need to pull our socks up, couple of crucial games coming up and we are looking forward to win games in the next couple of weeks,” Samson told Star Sports.
Gujarat Titans muscled Rajasthan Royals with explosive batting
Speaking of the match, in notable batting performances from GT batters, Wriddhiman Saha top scored with an unbeaten 41 runs off 34 balls while Shubman Gill (36 off 35 balls) supported Saha well to stitch a 71-run partnership for the first wicket.
Thereafter, it was the Hardik Pandya show as he bludgeoned Adam Zampa and played a fiery knock (39* off 15 balls) and took his team home in a dominating fashion. As a result, with this win, GT remain at the helm of the IPL points table while RR are still reeling in the middle of the table with 10 points.
