Rajasthan Royals (RR) spinner Ravichandran Ashwin praised right-arm seamer Sandeep Sharma after his brilliant performance against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on Sunday. Building on Sanju Samson’s attack and Trent Boult’s brilliance, RR started their IPL 2024 campaign with a home win as RR registered a 20-run win against LSG at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.
Sandeep took one wicket and conceded just 22 runs in his spell of three overs. He bowled exceptionally well in the death overs and led his side to a comfortable victory.
The 37-year-old cricketer spoke about the collaboration between Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag. Both batters scored a partnership of 93 runs in 59 balls. While Samson, on the one hand, played an unbeaten knock of 82 runs off 52 balls, which was peppered with six maximums and three fours, on the other hand, Parag scored an important 43 runs in 29 balls, including three sixes and a four in his innings.
“I think it was a wicket of two halves. I thought it stuck in the field in the first half. It was a bit tasteless, it depends how much water you put on it. Sanju and Riyan batted very well but I felt like we were ten runs short, with so many impact players in the form of Hetmyer and Jurel. But the pitch is holding up well here. I went for twelve off the first two balls. It needs a different mentality because it comes from Test cricket. I’m in a good mental and physical space at the moment though. I went for 15 in the 1st over in the powerplay, I sometimes bowl 2 or 3, I try to forget it away, it’s a different game after the powerplay,” Ashwin said in a post-match interview.
The Chennai-born player further stated that the South Africa right-arm pacer performed very well in the first match of his IPL career and he is confident that he will perform very well in the near future.
“The game is built by perceptions, if you look at the way Sandy has bowled, he has been a top-5 bowler (in the IPL) – he is a character, does the dirty work for us, has done a lot to help Prasidh to cover in the last season too. I see him as a fighter – bowlers getting two bouncers is the only addition in this format and the bowlers want to use it. Boult has performed for a long time and Nandre did well in his first match, I see him a lot more in the future,” the veteran off-spinner added.
The match saw the hosts, Rajasthan Royals, win the toss and opt to bat first.
Openers Jos Buttler (11) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (24 in 12 balls, with three fours and a six) departed without making much of an impact, reducing the side to 49/2. Thereafter, a 93-run partnership emerged between Riyan and skipper Sanju, who scored 82* in 52 balls, with three fours and six sixes. Dhruv Jurel (20* in 12 balls, with a four and six) rounded it off well, taking RR to 193/4 in 20 overs.
LSG were reduced to 11/3 in the chase of 194 runs. Then Deepak Hooda (26 in 13 balls, with two fours and two sixes) along with KL stabilized the innings a bit. After Hooda’s dismissal, which left LSG at 60/4, KL put together an 85-run stand with Nicholas Pooran (64 in 41 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes). But a win was not meant for LSG as RR made a comeback with timely wickets, reducing LSG to 173/6 in 20 overs.
Trent Boult (2/35) was the bowlers’ choice for RR. Sandeep, Ashwin, Nandre Burger and Yuzvendra Chahal took a wicket each.
Samson received the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his half-century.
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