‘We were just one hit away from win’, says RR captain Sanju Samson after a loss against PBKS

Guwahati: After losing the final over thriller to Punjab Kings (PBKS) by five runs, Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson said that the team did well to get close to win but fell short of just one hit for the win.

Chasing a huge 198-run target, the Royals had managed 57 in the powerplay, although they lost three wickets while doing so. Sanju stood tall and took the attack to the opposition in his style and played a crucial 42-run knock off 25 balls.

Outcome of the match “Yes I think it’s very important in games like this, where the momentum shifts away from you. We started off really well, we finished the powerplay really well. I think in the middle (overs) we were expecting us to get those boundaries here and there.

“They bowled really well, two, three tight overs together. That’s where the momentum went a bit down. But we did really well to get so close. A couple of fours here and there, I think we just fell short of a six, just one ball hit away,” Samson said in a post-match press conference.

With 74 runs required off 30 balls Royals were reeling 124-6, Samson’s cameo set the platform for Shimron Hetmyer (36) and ‘Impact Player’ Dhruv Jurel (32*) to follow as the two stitched a crucial partnership in the final overs to stage the fightback.

The 22-year-old Jurel didn’t hesitate to hit big. In the penultimate over, after a dot and a wide, he slammed one bounce four on Arshdeep’s Yorker and followed it up with a maximum to deep extra cover, in the process he completed the fastest fifty-run partnership off just 20 balls.

But Curran held his nerves and gave away just seven runs off the next three deliveries as PBKS wrapped up the win by 5 runs.

Speaking about Jurel, Samson Samson discussed the Royals’ development process and said: “That’s how we work as a franchise. He has been with us from the last two seasons. He was playing a lot of domestic games. What we do as a franchise, we tend to have camps just before the IPL. People who play domestic cricket, they keep on coming to our academies.

“We did about five to seven camps of a week each throughout the year. We did it in Nagpur, Jaipur, Chennai, Bangalore, almost everywhere. We made sure that people like Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag and all these guys get enough practice.

Our team management, especially Zubin Barucha (Director of High Performance) put in lots and lots of hours in making someone like a Dhruv Jurel to come and bat the way he did in his first game, playing international bowlers at this pressure situation. That says a lot about him and we are very hopeful he comes again and wins us a few games,” added Samson.