The Rajasthan Royals, captained by Sanju Samson, were overjoyed because they felt they had defended 214 runs. But suddenly the siren broke out, Sandeep Sharma had gone too far, and the smiles turned to scorn.
SunRisers Hyderabad needed four runs off the final ball to tie the game. To secure the victory, Abdul Samad moved outside the off stump and blasted a full ball from Sandeep over long-off. Samson had no idea what had hit him as he glanced about for explanations.
Both Sanju Samson and the Rajasthan Royals have had a mixed bag of emotions. After riding high in the first few games, they have fallen into a downturn, losing five of their last six.
As captain, Sanju has made some confusing judgements, and the team must now go back to the drawing board and reconsider their choices. We look at three leadership mistakes committed by Sanju Samson thus far in the IPL:
1) Puzzling use of Spinners
Sanju Samson had more than five bowlers at his service in his match against the Chennai Super Kings. Rajasthan set a goal of 203 runs for CSK and beat them by 32 runs. Sanju’s judgements, on the other hand, were rather confusing.
Jason Holder was expensive, but Samson kept bowling him and the West Indian finished his four overs. Adam Zampa, on the other hand, bowled only three overs despite posting a figure of 3/22. He dismissed Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Moeen Ali.
2) Not using impact player
When it comes to utilising an impact player, the Rajasthan Royals have been the most reluctant. And when they finally decided on one, the reasoning behind it was weird.
When they were struggling against the Gujarat Titans, they used Riyan Parag as an impact player. This decision made no sense given that they had players like Dhruv Jurel and Shimron Hetmyer waiting in the lineup.
They have also avoided using Joe Root even when the top order has struggled in games, and have rarely used Obed McCoy as a death bowler.
3) Troubles at the death
In the death overs, Sanju Samson has struggled to get the best out of his bowlers. He used Kuldeep Sen as an impact player in the match against the Mumbai Indians.
The pacer gave up 20 runs in his one over and was not used again. Chahal bowled three overs before being replaced by Jason Holder, who bowled the last over and conceded the match after giving three sixes on a row.
In the encounter against the SunRisers Hyderabad, the story was the same. Obed McCoy was brought in as a death bowler to help with their problems in the death overs.
However, McCoy only bowled one over, and Samson chose the inexperienced Kuldip Yadav in the 19th over McCoy. As SRH gathered momentum and went on to win the match, Yadav allow three sixes and a four.
