Rajasthan Royals started their IPL 2024 campaign in a pretty good manner as they remained the table toppers for quite a good time but they started fumbling towards the end of the league phase. However, they still didn’t have any problem in entering the playoffs and they played good cricket to win the eliminator against Royal Challengers Bangalore but they once again fumbled when it came to securing a place in the finals.
RR lost the second qualifier which they played against Sunrisers Hyderabad and their dream of winning the IPL trophy for the second time came crashing on the ground as they fell 36 runs short while chasing the target of 176 runs. The match was played at M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai and SRH all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed was adjudged as the Player of the Match for his superb performance.
Shahbaz Ahmed who is a left-arm spinner not only scored 18 important runs but also took 3 wickets and helped his team in winning the match.
After the match, during a show, Tom Moody talked about a mistake which was made by Sanju Samson and RR and he called it a massive ‘tactical blunder’. In Tom Moody’s opinion, Shimron Hetmyer should have been sent to bat before Dhruv Jurel and Ravichandran Ashwin because he would have negated the two left-arm spinners.
Here’s what Tom Moody said, “To me it was an absolute no-brainer. Hetmyer had to go in ahead of Dhruv Jurel, regardless of whether he played very nicely. He would have still played nice when he got his opportunity. But they needed to negate the two left-arm spinners, right at the outset. That was the hole, Sunrisers had in their attack and they needed to negate that. They should have sent Hetmyer in and said just play your game. Take it down in your zone, let’s get ahead in this game, do not allow these left-arm spinners to take control of the game. Yes, people will see we end up getting out to left-arm spin, but the game was nearly gone by then and that was a particularly good ball, a carrom ball as we mentioned. If we got ahead in the game, that would not have ever happened.”
He further said that it was a tactical blunder, massive tactical blunder.
Here’s the video:
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Tom Moody’s opinion was supported by former Indian cricketer Wasim Jaffer as well, former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag was also surprised as to why RR delayed in sending Shimron Hetmyer to bat because when two left-arm spinners were bowling, sending a left-arm batter would have been better.
What do you have to say about this tactical blunder made by Sanju Samson?
