Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag played down his team’s heavy defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad, calling it a minor setback and urged his team to move on quickly. RR suffered a crushing 57-run loss after being bowled out at the start of their chase of 217. The damage was done in the very first over when debutant pacer Praful Hinge struck three times, removing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius, leaving Rajasthan reeling. Reflecting on the loss, Parag admitted the team had little time to deal with emotions and acknowledged SRH’s strong execution with the ball. “There’s not a lot of time to be emotional to be honest. We’ve conceded back-to-back goals, credit to the way they’ve gone. There’s probably been a few miscalculations on our part, but we’ll just take it as a blip and not think too much about it.” Parag also took stock of the pitch conditions, suggesting that a chase might have been a better option, although he admitted that RR’s batting collapse hurt them more than anything else. “(on the field) It was actually quite good. I felt the second bowling could have been better, probably because we lost wickets. It was a bit sticky with the new ball with the gloss on. When the gloss went off I felt it slowed down a bit and we could have bowled second, but that’s hindsight and we could have batted a lot better.” The RR skipper reserved special praise for the SRH debutants, especially Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain, who combined to dismantle the batting line-up. “Absolutely I don’t think I’ve seen them much at home but I think I played Sakib once when I played against Bihar versus Assam. But they looked beautiful. I could feel the pressure they had with the home crowd cheering and chanting their names and stuff. I could feel the way they played the first four overs, the first four, five, I think it was really beautiful.” Parag also explained his tactical challenge of not using Ravindra Jadeja with the ball, citing Ishan Kishan’s form as a key factor. “(on Jadeja’s bowling) I felt we started really well. We probably could have done a few things here and there. Jaddu bhai, I don’t know, just a split second decision. Ishan was batting really well so I didn’t want to take any chances. Trusty Bishnoi with the overs. But I felt they were definitely 30 over par with the way the wicket was playing.” Despite being reduced to 9/5, RR saw some fight between Donovan Ferreira and Jadeja for 118 runs, eventually reaching 159. Parag took this as a positive and highlighted the depth of the batting unit. “In terms of batting, I think when we have five wickets for nine runs and still get 160, it says a lot about the depth of our batting.” Looking ahead, the young captain remained upbeat and insisted the team will regroup quickly for the next game. “Absolutely, like I said, it’s just a blip and we’ll move to Calcutta and do something better.”
