Riyan Parag takes blame as RR suffer 4th consecutive defeat
What's the story
Rajasthan Royals (RR) suffered another heartbreaking defeat in their IPL 2025 campaign, losing to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by a mere two runs.
The team couldn't manage a win in the last match against Delhi Capitals either, which ended in a tie and was decided by a Super Over.
Stand-in captain Riyan Parag lamented the team's failure to close out the chase and took blame.
RR were placed well to win the contest but fell short in the end.
Post-match remarks
'I don't know what we did wrong'
After the narrow loss to LSG, Parag admitted that such defeats are "really kind of hard to process."
The likes of Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel could only score six runs out of the nine needed in the final over.
"I don't know what we did wrong. I felt we were in the game probably till the 18th over and 19th over, actually." Parag said at the post-match presentation.
"But yeah, I don't know."
Batting breakdown
I blame myself for this, says Parag
RR were 156/2 at the end of 17 overs but lost the plot.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed in the 18th over by Avesh Khan and Parag too departed in the same over.
Parag feels he should have finished the game.
"I think it's something along those lines," Parag said. "I blame myself for this. I probably should have finished it in the 19th over. But then, I don't know if that was a bad decision for myself. I mean, we [have] just got to put one game together collectively for 40 overs. Only then can we expect a win."
Bowling breakdown
RR's bowling performance and final over disappointment
Parag also emphasized on a crucial over which hurt RR's chances of winning.
Sandeep Sharma gave away 27 runs in the last over of LSG's innings, with Abdul Samad smashing four sixes off him.
He thought they should have restricted LSG to a lower score, but admitted they should have chased down the target.
Those two overs of Avesh (18th and 20th) hurt RR's cause.
Words
Parag offers insights on where RR went wrong
"I think we did really well [with the ball]. The last over was unfortunate," he said.
"I kind of thought we would stop them at like 165, [or] 170 max. The last over was unfortunate. Sandy bhai is trusted. I think he just had one bad game, and Abdul Samad batted really well. So I thought we were like probably 20 runs over par, [or] 15 runs over par. But we should have chased that down."