After the Rajasthan Royals (RR) failed to complete yet another run-chase on Thursday, April 24, Sunil Gavaskar questioned their game knowledge. At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the first champions lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) by 11 runs after needing just 18 runs from the final two overs with five wickets remaining.
The Rajasthan batsmen lacked the enthusiasm and self-assurance to cross the finish line, despite Josh Hazlewood’s outstanding penultimate over, in which he claimed two wickets and gave up just one run. The team captained by Riyan Parag was held to 194/9 while chasing a 206-run goal.
Despite having Rahul Dravid, who is renowned for his all-encompassing tactics, as their head coach, Sunil Gavaskar was shocked to see the Royals’ hitters faltering under duress.
“With the Rajasthan Royals, I’m referring to the earlier games that I simply watched from outside the stadium. Therefore, it’s not always possible to sense what’s actually happening. I was at the ground here, though, and you could see the type of cricket being played.
And it was quite perplexing, it was mindless cricket with someone like Rahul Dravid as the coach,” Sunil Gavaskar stated in an interview with Star Sports.
“Where is that mental process? Even so, you can’t count on novice players to always do it properly. Simply said, it’s a distinct species of cricket. He continued, “I would have thought that kind of approach would have seeped into some of the Rajasthan batters, as Dravid was always so precise in his thinking.”
In his final role as head coach of the Men in Blue, Dravid led India to the T20 World Cup championship in June 2024. He later rejoined the Royals once his time with the Indian squad ended. But since the Royals are virtually out of the running for the playoffs, his first season back with the team hasn’t been particularly noteworthy. They lost Thursday, their ninth game of the season, and now have only two victories from nine games.
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