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Rajasthan Royals (RR) were at their possible best in their crunch Qualifier 2 tie against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), securing a seven-wicket victory and reaching the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 final, where they will face Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
Leading the charge for RR was their star batter Jos Buttler, but the job of restricting the RCB batters in the first innings fell to the RR bowlers, who did an excellent job picking up wickets at regular intervals. Their contributions were recognised by their head coach Kumar Sangakkara as well, who praised the bowlers after the game.
"The entire bowling unit was outstanding. Special mention to Prasidh. We had 16 to defend in the last game, and three sixes by Miller. It can cause a huge dent in then confidence. But he was honest, he was great in the nets. Then Trent Boult. And Obed McCoy, his mother has been quite ill back home, but he has been able to put that aside. She is recovering well. And Ashwin and Yuzi have run the show," said the Sri Lankan legend.
Sangakkara also heaped praise on Jos Buttler, who scored a brilliant ton to equal the record for the most amount of centuries of four, earlier set by Virat Kohli. "All the planning, all the hard work. Really tough with the close defeat to Gujarat Titans but the guys got back up and came back strongly. Jos Buttler backs his strengths and manoeuvres the bowling to bowl more and more to his strengths. The great thing is he can accelerate at any time. Overall he is a wonderful guy who thinks deeply about his game and himself," said Sangakkara
Sangakkara was also quick to appreciate the efforts of the backroom staff who assembled the team that helped RR reach the IPL 2022 final for the second time in 15 years. "At the auction table, we spent 90-95% of our purse on putting together our first XI. We worked hard on data to work on the players we wanted. We put emphasis on experience at the moment.
"We have a spattering of youngsters who will become stars later, but our first XI has a strong share of seasoned internationals. Full credit to Giles Lindsay, our analyst, Zubin Barucha, and the rest of the staff. Wins don't just happen. It takes a lot of planning, hard work, execution on the field," concluded Sangakkara.
