'Where is the thought process there?'
Batting great Sunil Gavaskar slammed Rajasthan Royals' woeful showing with the bat after they stumbled at the end to suffer a 11-run defeat at the hands of Royal Challengers Bengaluru during the IPL 2025 match in Bengaluru on Thursday.
Chasing 206 for victory, RR looked on course for victory before they choked at the end to finish on 194/9 in 20 overs -- losing their fifth match on the trot.
Royals looked on course for victory with 18 needed from the last two overs and five wickets in hand. However, the wicket of the well-set Dhruv Jurel, who was given out caught behind off the review, after scoring 47 from 34 balls, proved to be the turning point as Royals lose their last four wickets for two runs in the space of six balls.
This was the third match in a row where Royals had failed to chase down a target despite being in a good position. They had earlier failed to chase down nine runs from six balls against Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Super Giants
"With Rajasthan Royals, I am actually talking about the earlier matches where I wasn't at the ground, I just saw them. So, you are not always able to get the feeling of what is really happening.
But here, I was at the ground, and you could actually see the kind of cricket that was being played. And with someone like Rahul Dravid as the coach, it was quite baffling, it was unthinking cricket," Gavaskar said on after the match.
Gavaskar said he was unable to understand how Royals were fumbling time and again in pressure situations despite having the great Rahul Dravid in their dugout, who is known for his 'precise thinking'.
"Dravid was always so precise in his thinking, and I would have thought that kind of approach would have seeped into some of the Rajasthan batters."
"Where is the thought process there? You can't expect inexperienced players to always get it right, but still... it is just a different kind of cricket," he stated.
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