rajasthan royals team leader Ryanparag Played down his team’s heavy defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad, terming it a minor setback and urged his team to move on quickly. RR suffered a heavy defeat by 57 runs after being beaten early in the match chasing 217 runs. In the first over, debutant pacer Praful Hinge struck the ball three times, removing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius, leaving Rajasthan in trouble. Looking back on the defeat, Parag admitted that the team had little time to reflect on emotions and admitted that SRH’s execution with the ball was strong. “To be honest, there wasn’t much time to take in the emotions. We lost wickets in a row and that was down to the way they bowled. Maybe we made some misjudgments, but we will just treat this as a small episode and not think too much about it. “ Parag also assessed the pitch conditions, suggesting that chasing might be a better option, although he admitted that RR’s batting collapse hurt them the most. “(On the pitch) it was actually pretty good. I felt the second bowling could have been better, probably because we lost wickets. The new ball had a sheen to it and was a bit sticky. After the sheen went off, I felt it slowed down a bit and we could have bowled the second one, but again that’s hindsight and we could have batted better.” The RR captain paid special tribute to SRH’s debuting seamers, especially Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain, who combined to disintegrate the batting line-up. “Of course, I guess I didn’t see them that often at home, but I think I played against Saqib once when I played against Bihar and Assam. But they played well. I felt the support from the home fans and the pressure of chanting their names and stuff like that. I felt the way they pitched the first four, first four, five, I thought was really beautiful. “ Parag also explained his tactical call not to use Ravindra Jadeja with ball, quote form Ishan Kishan as a key factor. “(On Jadeja not bowling) I felt we started well. Maybe can do a few things here and there. Jaddu bhai, I don’t know, just a split second decision. Ishan was batting really well so I didn’t want to take a chance. Trustworthy Bishnoi. But I think from the way the wickets are played, they are definitely 30 over. “ Despite being dropped to 9/5, RR showed some fight in a 118-run stand between Donovan Ferreira and Jadeja, who eventually reached 159. Parag sees this as a positive, emphasizing the depth of the batting group. “As far as batting is concerned, I think to score 160 runs at 9 runs down by 5 wickets says a lot about the depth of our batting.” Looking to the future, the young captain remains optimistic, insisting that the team will regroup as soon as possible for the next game. “Of course, like I said, this is just a blip and we will go to Kolkata and do better things.”
