Kumar Sangakkara, the Director of Cricket for the Rajasthan Royals, thinks that Ravichandran Ashwin is a legend in his own right, but he still needs to work on his game and throw more traditional off-breaks
Sangakkara talked about Ashwin
The veteran off-spinner, who is 36 years old and has taken 442 wickets in Tests for India, is known for trying out a lot of different things with his bowling. He often throws fewer traditional off-breaks than carom balls that go away from right-handers.
“Even though Ash is a legend in terms of what he has done on the cricket pitch, he has a lot of work to do, especially with his off-spinners and bowling more of them,” Sangakkara said of the team’s oldest player, who took only 12 wickets in 17 games this season.
Sangakkara thought that score was never going to be enough
Even in the summit clash, the best off-spinner chose to throw a lot of carom balls instead of normal off-spin balls. While defending a modest 130, he gave up 32 runs in three overs without taking any wickets.
When RR chose to bat first, they were only able to score 130/9, which took GT 18.1 overs to reach. Sangakkara thought that score was never going to be enough. “That was a hard one. 130 never felt like enough. We weren’t sure whether they should bat first or not. When we got to the ground, the pitch was pretty dry, so we thought it would get slower and maybe give our spinners a little bit of turn. So, we thought we’d get between 160 and 165”.
Sangakkara talked about Sanju Samson
He said that after a good start, his team let the other team’s bowlers get into the game. “We were really well-set in our batting innings at 70/1 at the halfway mark until Sanju (Samson) got out,” he said. Then they came back and bowled some beautiful overs, and we let Gujarat back into the game.”
We need a little luck and some quick wickets in the power play to get to 130. We did get two, but unfortunately, we didn’t get (Shubman) Gill in the first over, and the run rate never went above seven. “It was going to be hard from the start. It wasn’t hard to figure out, and all we had to do was try to get a couple of wickets and break the partnership between David Miller, Hardik Pandya, and Yuvraj Gill, but we couldn’t,” he said.
Rajasthan Royals tweeted
“Ups. Downs. Always together.
#RoyalsFamily | #HallaBol | #TATAIPL2022”
“This season was really special for us. It was very good to give the fans some happy moments. I am really proud of my team.” – Sanju Samson
“I think Riyan Parag has a huge amount of potential”, Sangakkara said:
Even though the team had a good season and finished second, Sangakkara thought there were a lot of ways they could improve.
“Well, we have a lot of work to do to get better in every way. In the early stages of our batting, Jos (Buttler), Sanju, and Shimron Hetymer made big contributions. “Riyan (Parag) and Devdutt (Padikkal) really played well at times, but I think the support role players need to do a little bit more overall,” he said.
“Because I think he is so good against both spin and pace”, Kumar said:
When talking about Riyan Parag, the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman said he thought the young player would strengthen the middle order for Rajasthan. “I think Riyan Parag has a huge amount of potential, and we need to get him to a higher batting number by the time we start next season. I’m looking forward to helping him become more of an early middle-order player instead of just a “death-hitter.”
“Because I think he is so good against both spin and pace,” said the great Sri Lankan batsman. Before he left, Sangakkara said that this was the best and strongest eleven that RR played with. “…but when you look at the quality of the players we had, this was the best and strongest team we put out on the field,” he said.
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